


Blood and Genetics

by thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey



Series: Breathe [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst I guess, DNA Tests, Fighting, Fire, Flashbacks, Fluff, Galaxy Garrison, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Griffin being a jerk, Needles, PTSD, Shiro being an older brother, Smol Paladins, au i guess, but also smart, fistfights, idk what's going on I just started this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-01-13 12:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 41,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18469258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey/pseuds/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey
Summary: It's awfully convenient that Keith's Galra, animalistic eye genes didn't show up until season six when he knew he was Galra. What if things were less convenient? What if those genes manifested while Keith was still at the Garrison?





	1. Animal Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Work updates whenever I finish a chapter: sorry, I don't have a posting schedule on this one.

Iverson growled at the cadets lined up in front of him. “Hope you all like it in the simulator! You can thank Pilot Fancypants over there for the privilege of spending the next three weekends in here running drills!”

All of the cadets groaned in unison, and one of them, one of Keith’s old classmates, turned to him.

“Thanks a lot,” he spat.

Keith kept his face calm and collected. He’d had a lot of practice. “My pleasure.”

The other cadet- James, that was his name, James Griffin, he’d been in Keith’s class before, but they hadn’t been friends- glared. “We all know the only reason you’re here is because of Shiro.”

Keith felt the traces of annoyance and injured pride flare up as tiny embers in his belly, and he struggled to keep it under control. “I can outfly anyone in this building!

James only sneered. “Oh, yeah? Is that what Mommy and Daddy told you before—”

Keith leapt at James, knocking the other boy over effortlessly and slamming his small fist into James’ face, rage flowing through him. James didn’t have the right to talk about his dad. James _definitely_ didn’t have the right to mention his stupid- deadbeat- mother. James struggled, but Keith had the upper hand. At least he did until an officer dragged him off, still struggling.

“Hey! Hey, break it up!”

Keith glared at the wall as they dragged him off towards Iverson’s office.He sat outside next to Griffin, who watched him warily as Iverson talked to Shiro in a low, but not low enough voice. Shiro’s voice comes after- his military, “yes sir” voice.

“Understood. I’ll handle it.”

Shiro came out, and Griffin went into the office, scooting as fast as he could away from Keith. Keith kicked the ground.

“Look, I know I messed up. You should send me back to the home already. This place isn’t for me.” It hurt _so bad_ to say that- he wants to be a pilot, wants to fly, like Shiro, but he can’t conform to all of the strict discipline of the Garrison. He just… can’t.

Shiro’s mouth was set in a hard line, but not an angry line. More… determined. “Keith, you can do this. I will n _ever_ give up on you. But more importantly… you can’t give up on yourself.”

Keith stared at the floor bitterly, rubbing his bruised jaw, hurt in the fight. “You don’t know me.”

Shiro shrugged. “You’re right. I don’t.” Keith blinked in surprise. Most adults would try to assure him that they did- that they could help him. But not Shiro. Shiro gave him a smile. “But sometimes, we all need a hand.” He held his out.

Keith took it.

Neither of them could know what was going on in Iverson’s office.

Xxx

“Sir, his eyes- they- there was something wrong with him, and sir—”

“Calm down, cadet,” Iverson ordered James, “Slow down.”

James took a deep breath. “Sir, when Cadet Kogane jumped on me- his irises and pupils turned into slits, and I _swear_ that the whites of his eyes were yellow. And his teeth- sir, his teeth were all pointy.” James shuddered. “It was like a nightmare. He looked like a demon, sir. It- it wasn’t natural.”

“You’ve got an overactive imagination, Cadet.”

“Sir, I  _swear_ I’m telling the truth. I _saw_ it.”

“You need to get your head checked out by the nurse. Kogane hit you pretty hard.”

“Sir, I’m not concussed! His eyes were _yellow_!”

“You are dismissed, Cadet.”

“Sir—”

“I _said_ , you’re dismissed!”

James drooped. “Yes, sir.” He exited quietly. He didn’t go to the nurse, though. He went to one of the other cadets, a bigger boy by the name of Hunk. He was with another member of their flight group, Lance McClain.

“Garret, right?”

The other cadet nodded, giving him a friendly, easygoing smile. “What do you need?”

“You’re good with machines, right?”

“Right.”

James grinned. “Do you have any small cameras? You know, one that I could put somewhere that would see everything that I see without anyone seeing it?”

“Um- yeah- why?”

“I just need one.”

“No, really, why?” Lance questioned, peering suspiciously over Hunk’s shoulder.

“I want to get it on tape the next time that Kogane attacks me.”

Lance’s eyes lit up. “Are we going to youtube him? No one likes him, you know, they’ll probably make memes off of it.”

James blinked. “Um… maybe?”

“Get the man a camera,” Lance ordered Hunk, “We’re going to be famous viners!”

“Vine died a long time ago, Lance. Like, a _really_ long time ago,” Hunk reminded him, but went into his room. “Hold on a second, James.”

James snatched up the tiny camera from Hunk the instant that he held it out. “How do you work it?”

Lance cackled. “We’re going to be famous!”

Xxx

Keith’s fingers clutched his lunch tray tightly as he made his way past Griffin. He avoided looking at the other boy, which was his mistake. An outstretched foot made him stumble, nearly knocking him over completely.

“Watch it,” he snapped.

“You watch it,” Griffin snapped back, “My foot was there first.”

Keith took a deep breath, and kept walking.

“Heard what your mom did,” James called, “Sucks to be you. I’ve got both of _my_ parents. She probably left because she didn’t want to see your ugly—”

Keith brought his lunch tray cracking down on Griffin’s head, discarding it and tackling the other boy off of his chair. His head made a nasty _crack_ as it hit the ground, and a couple of other cadets pulled him off of Griffin.

“Oh my gosh, he killed him!” one of them shouted, “Kogane killed Griffin!”

“’m not dead,” Griffin muttered woozily as a Garrison officer took Keith’s arm, “I’m alive.” He shook himself, pulling something off of his head. “Is the camera okay?”

Keith’s heart plummeted down to his shoes. Camera?

One of the other cadets took the tiny camera from him. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

James snatched the camera back. “I’m going to go see Iverson!”

“Whoa, hey, where are you—”

Griffin ran off, watching the video. Keith felt his stomach tie itself in writhing knots. They would kick him out for this, definitely. He’d probably given Griffin a concussion- that was the kind of thing that they wouldn’t excuse, he knew it. The officer pulled him towards the office, and Keith followed numbly, his feet moving automatically. Shiro would be so disappointed. Would he finally give up on Keith? Never was a very strong word, but Keith had… He shook his head.

“Wait out here,” the officer told him, “I’m getting Takeshi.”

James’ audience with Iverson seemed to be taking much more time than usual, and the roiling knots in Keith’s stomach only got worse until he thought that he might throw up. Finally, James came out, and Keith went in, wondering where Shiro was. Iverson was waiting for him.

“Sit down, Cadet.”

“Sir?”

“Sit down.”

Keith sat in a chair, feeling impossibly small, and looking around like a bug trapped in a jar. “I know that I broke the rules, Sir, but—”

“I’m not going to punish you.”

Keith blinked. “Sir?”

“Cadet Griffin made a full confession. He was deliberately provoking you to get you to attack him. Under the circumstances, we’re not going to punish you, or throw you out of the Garrison.”

“Thank you, Sir, I—”

Iverson held a hand up. “I want you to see something.” He turned his computer to face Keith. On it was a video, taken from Griffin’s perspective. The video played, showing Keith’s stumble, Griffin’s taunts, and then Keith attacking Griffin. Keith’s eyebrows shot sky high.

“Sir- with all due respect, I have to ask- is this a joke?”

“The video hasn’t been altered,” Iverson said grimly, “You were unaware that this was happening?”

“I- I didn’t know that my eyes…”

“Then you don’t know the cause?”

Keith shook his head numbly, looking at his frozen, snarling self, with sharp canines and animalistic eyes. “I have no idea.”

The door opened, and Shiro walked through. “Iverson, I was told—” he caught sight of the frozen video. “Sir, please tell me that the frame has been photoshopped.”

“Not in the slightest, Shirogane.”

Shiro’s eyes flicked to Keith, who shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know, Shiro.”

Iverson leaned forward. “Now that you’re both here, I want to suggest something. We’ve never seen anything like this before. It could have any reason. I don’t think that it’s much of a disease- unless you’ve felt poorly, lately, Cadet?”

“No, Sir.”

“Right, then. So, as it’s likely not a virus, I’d like to run a DNA test or two, just to see if there’s an answer there. It won’t take much. A little blood sample, or a hair is all, and you’ll be free to go until we get the results.”

Shiro drew Keith a little closer to himself. “And you needed to talk to us about this… why?”

“We don’t take DNA tests without permission from the one who we’re taking them for,” Iverson said gruffly, “I wanted to ask Cadet Kogane, and I wanted you to be here so that he wouldn’t feel any pressure to accept- if he feels outside of his comfort zone, we won’t attempt it. I’ll give you two a minute alone.”

Iverson walked out the door, closing it firmly shut behind him. Keith sighed.

“He’s listening in, isn’t he?”

“Probably,” Shiro agreed, “But that’s beside the point. Keith, do you know…”

“I don’t know anything, Shiro. I never knew that this was happening.”

“Alright, then. I can tell you, Keith, that DNA tests don’t hurt any more than a shot does, and even that is only if they draw blood. Are you okay with that?”

“I’m okay with that.”

“And are you okay with them cracking open your genetic code?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

Shiro shrugged. “It makes some people feel like their privacy has been violated. So, then, you don’t mind?”

“No. I want to do this, I think. I want to know why that,” Keith said, gesturing towards the frozen screen, “is happening.”

Shiro smiled. “Alright, then. We’ll let Iverson know, then?” He got up to go to the door.

“Wait. Shiro. Suppose… suppose that there _is_ something weird about my genetics… what then?”

Shiro paused and then shrugged. “I guess we’ll know. I don’t think that knowing you have a faulty gene somewhere will change anything. It’ll just be an explanation for why your body does certain things. Like that.” He gestured towards the computer screen.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Shiro grinned. “After all of this is over, I’ll take you out to eat, okay? Wherever you want.”

“Fast food?”

Shiro made a face. “I offer you absolutely any expensive place you want to eat, and you choose fast food?”

Keith shrugged. “I like fast food.”

“Okay. We’ll go out for some fast food. But you’ve got to branch out in your tastes, buddy.” Shiro opened the door. “Iverson? Keith agrees. When are we going to do this?”

Iverson nodded crisply. “Well, we can get the samples now. We won’t get any results for a week or two, but the process to get the DNA doesn’t take long. Come along, Cadet.”

Keith and Shiro followed Iverson to the on-base medical center, where Iverson spoke quietly to a nurse. Keith was shown into a little room, and a doctor came in with a swab and a syringe.

“We’re going to swab the inside of your mouth, okay? And we’ll draw a little blood. You’re not scared of needles, are you?”

“No.”

“Good. Swab first.”

Keith gave Shiro a long-suffering look that Shiro rolled his eyes at as the doctor swabbed Keith’s cheek and dropped the swab in a container before rubbing an alcohol patch on a vein that showed on Keith’s elbow. He got the syringe ready. “There we are. Ready? One, two, three.”

There was a little pinch, and then the doctor was smiling and telling Keith that he could go. He hopped off of the chair and followed Shiro out of the med center happily.

“Can we get food?”

Shiro laughed. “You’re hungry, aren’t you? Alright, come on.” He led Keith to his car, signing both of them out. “Let’s go.”

Keith clambered into the passenger seat, and Shiro grinned. “Are you sure you don’t want to drive?”

“I’m not old enough to drive, Shiro.”

“Really? That’s not what you thought when you stole my car for a joyride.”

“Let’s… not talk about that.”

Shiro’s grin got wider as he got in the driver’s seat. “Not a time that you want to relive? Why _did_ you steal my car, anyway?”

Keith shrugged. “I heard the teacher talking to you about my ‘discipline issues.’”

“So, what, you decided to prove her right?”

“I decided I would go out on my own terms,” Keith corrected, “and _not_ because she told you I was a head-case.”

Shiro glanced at him. “Bewareth the pride,” he warned.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Let’s talk about something else.” Shiro looked back at the road. “Why do you like fast food so much?”

Keith shrugged. “It’s easy to get. It’s cheap. It’s made really fast, so I can get moving.”

Shiro chuckled. “You’re always going somewhere, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Sir. That’s why I’ve got to go to space, so that I’ll have somewhere else to be going.”

Shiro laughed, and Keith settled back in his seat, looking out the window. He was only half-joking.


	2. Into the Dark Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Science is spouted, and Griffin is a jerk

“Sir? The DNA results have come through. I think you ought to see this.”

Iverson peered over the scientist’s shoulder. “What is it? I’m not a biologist, Holt, this is why I hire you!”

Coleen Holt pursed her lips. “Well, you see, his Y gene is perfectly normal- absolutely nothing strange about it. But his X gene… it’s not human, sir. It’s not that the gene is just mutated- it just isn’t human at all.”

“What do you mean, Holt? It has to be human- it wouldn’t be possible for an animal to mate with a human.”

“That’s the thing, sir. It’s not animal DNA, either, at least no animal that we have here on earth.”

“What are you suggesting, Holt?”

“Sir, we’ve been seeing signs of activity out in the far reaches of the solar system- I’ve seen the radio chatter picked up.”

“That’s confidential, Holt. You shouldn’t be talking about it so openly.”

“No, sir. But perhaps- perhaps those signs of activity might be the reason for this strain of DNA.”

“My office, Holt. Now.”

Coleen followed Iverson to his office, and he shut the door behind him. “So. About the possible chatter that we’ve picked up- you think…”

“I think that they’re signs of extraterrestrial life forms, yes. Are you familiar with the Dark Forest Theory?”

“No.”

“Essentially, it states that perhaps intelligent life is out there. But it also suggests that all of that life out there, including us, is all like a dark forest, teeming with soldiers. You don’t dare call out in case someone who hears you is an enemy. And if you hear something yourself…”

“You don’t risk that it’s an enemy rather than an ally,” Iverson finished, “You shoot first.”

“Exactly. So we’re all soldiers in a dark forest, just hoping to survive. But you know what we’ve been doing ever since we figured out how to get things into space? We’ve been sending signals out. We’ve essentially been the soldier in the forest who’s been screaming non-stop.”

“You think that someone’s heard us.”

“Yes.” Coleen smiled slightly. “But- well, maybe the person who heard us has night-vision goggles.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that maybe they decided to look before shooting. Maybe they sent out a scout to assess our danger level.”

“What do you think that they’d decide?”

Coleen sighed. “Well, if they looked too far into our history, they’d see nuclear warfare in World War Two and World War Three. They’d see countless instances of humanity being pretty horrible. But then, we don’t know anything about this potential extraterrestrial species. They might look on those things in horror, or they might think that it’s a good sign of a strong potential ally.”

“And you think that Kogane’s mother might have been one of these potential extraterrestrials?”

“I think it’s a valid option. It’s not necessarily the  _only_ option, but we only have one case of this happening, and that’s Keith. If we had a wider database spread over several specimens, perhaps we could find out more. But as it is, there are no signs of the mutation of human DNA or any instances of possible radiation poisoning. His DNA simply isn’t human.”

“So you’re saying that Kogane’s father and another species—”

“Not another species, no. If they were another species, then it wouldn’t be possible to have a child who could reproduce, which, according to Keith’s genetic code, is entirely an option for him. Whatever Keith’s mother was, she was of our species. Strange, isn’t it? To think that a creature not even from our planet shares a closer genetic code than any other species on our homeworld? It’s fascinating, honestly, a scientific—”

“Holt, focus.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry. Normally I work with plants, which is just fine, but this—!”

“Yes. I considered bringing your husband in on this, but with the approaching launch of the Kerberos mission, I didn’t want to distract him.”

Coleen hesitated. “Sir- this information- if there really are intelligent extraterrestrials out there… it could be a game changer. We don’t know how far from earth they might be at this point in time and now- now that they might possibly know about us, it might be wise for us to stop broadcasting our presence. It might be best if we become the stealthiest soldier in the forest until we find out more.”

“You want to delay the mission.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I can’t do that. I don’t have the authority.”

“Well, please, discuss it with Sandas. Of course, before we make giant fools of ourselves, we need to get more conclusive evidence.”

“What do you mean?”

Coleen shrugged. “Keith’s birth records might clear things up a bit.You have access to those?”

“Yes.” Iverson logged into his computer and searched the databases for Keith’s file. He found it, opened it, and frowned. “His mother isn’t listed. At all. We have his father- died in a fire a few years back- but he doesn’t have a mother listed, which is strange. It’s perfectly normal not to have a father listed, but to not know who the mother is…”

“How is that even possible?” Coleen demanded, “She had to give birth to him!”

“He wasn’t born in a hospital. In fact, he wasn’t even registered until he was a year or two old. His mother may as well be a ghost: his father listed her as ‘away.’ He doesn’t say  _where_ she went, only that she is ‘away.’”

“Do you think she may have run out on them? Or maybe neither of their parents knew so he wanted to keep her identity a secret?”

“Maybe, but he was a fully-grown adult at the time, and according to Akira Kogane’s records…” Iverson tapped the screen. “both of his parents were dead before Keith was even born.”

“Her parents then,” Coleen suggested, “Perhaps she was a minor, which would explain why he certainly wasn’t going to tell the law who the mother was.”

“Perhaps. But the man was an upstanding citizen, by all means. Fireman. Did his part. Community service, no accounts of any former incidents or any such thing… he was a bit of a recluse, too. Lived out in the middle of the desert.”

Coleen tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Look at all incidents surrounding the years around Keith’s birth.”

Iverson clicked away at his computer. “Let’s see… there was a meteor, but nothing at the crash site. And there were some explosions in the desert, with twisted hunks of metal at the scene that led us to believe that they were caused by some poor desert animal wandering on a missed land mine from World War Three.”

“Meteor, huh?”

Iverson pushed his chair away from his computer a bit to look Coleen in the eye. “Are you suggesting that it might have been an extraterrestrial spacecraft?”

“I know that the desert sands cover objects quickly, but how soon do you typically get to a meteor that’s this close after its crash?”

“Couple of hours, maximum. It was a still night, too.”

“Were there any tracks?”

Iverson’s brow furrowed. “I don’t remember.” He clicked on his computer a few more times until he found the photos of the area. “It looks like there might be a few spots where a blown-over footprint could have been. But we don’t know for sure.”

“Well, no, we don’t really have a way of knowing for sure. But evidence suggests…”

“The meteor was a UFO. The alien maybe… I don’t know, drove it away from the crash site. She met Akira Kogane, and they had a child, which is Keith. And then, what, she left?”

Coleen frowned. “That’s the part that doesn’t make sense. Even if she never showed up in public with Akira, surely she wouldn’t abandon her child after her mate’s death. We don’t know much about these aliens, but if one was willing to reproduce with a human, she must have had a sentimental reason for it; there was no  _biological_  reason to mate with a human due their planetary differences. So it doesn’t fit in that she’d abandon her progeny.”

“Should I report our findings to Sandas?”

“No. We still don’t have definitive proof that this isn’t simply a gene that we’ve never seen before. We just don’t know enough about Keith’s mother to prove that she’s an extraterrestrial besides circumstantial evidence. I’m going home now; I can’t leave Katie alone for much longer. We’ll continue this tomorrow, okay? Don’t find anything out without me, okay?”

“How are we even  _supposed_ to find out anything else?!”

“That’s simple enough.” Coleen smiled. “We ask Keith.”

Xxx

Lance’s voice sounded softly in the quiet library. “Griffin, we need to talk to you.”

Griffin turned to face Hunk and Lance. “Hey. What do you need?”

Lance put his hands on his hips. “You need to fess up about that video. It wasn’t about embarrassing Keith, was it?”

Griffin shifted, glancing away from them. “What do you mean?”

“You went right to Iverson, but Keith didn’t even get in trouble! Even though you had video evidence that he attacked you! Not to mention that I haven’t seen that video  _anywhere_ on the internet, so why did you even take it?!”

Griffin sighed. “Look, do you remember when Keith attacked me in the simulator room?”

Lance snorted. “How could I forget?”

“Right, well, when he did, he… well, he changed, okay?”

“Yeah, he went from arrogant puffball who got us stuck running drills in the simulators to a murderous ball of rage. I could see that. Straight from pride to wrath.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, like, he  _physically_ changed. His eyes- the white part turned yellow and his irises—” Griffin shuddered. “You how snake’s irises are? Where their pupils are tiny slits? It was like that.”

Lance and Hunk glanced at each other. “Ooookay,” Lance said nervously, “You know, Keith hit you with the lunch tray really hard, it makes sense that your memories are out of whack- no pun intended.”

“I’m not suffering from a concussion!” Griffin shouted. A group of nearby students jumped and stared at him, as did the librarian. He waved a hand. “Sorry!” They went back to their own conversations, and he leaned towards Hunk and Lance, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Look, I’m not crazy or hallucinating. If you don’t believe me, you try. Antagonize Keith, and see it for yourself.”

“Are you  _sure_ that you’re not crazy?!” Lance questioned in an equally soft tone, “I’m not provoking Keith!”

“Why? If you’re right, there’s nothing to fear, right?”

“Uh, he can still pack a punch! That guy is a walking time bomb with a mullet! I’m not messing with him!”

“Yeah, no thanks,” Hunk echoed.

Griffin laughed incredulously. “Seriously? Even when you don’t believe that he’s some kind of super-freak you’re scared of Kogane?”

“Um, excuse me, Griffin, there’s this tiny little detail that you may or may not have noticed, I don’t know, because you know, it can be a bit hard to miss- oh, yeah, the kid is a  _psychopath_?! He’s got more issues than a tabloid Hollywood couple! And he may or may not have knocked any sense that you had out of you! That kid is bad news. I’m not getting  _near_ him if I can’t help it.”

The thump created by someone dropping books on the ground sounded and footsteps pounded past them, a whoosh of air ruffling their hair and uniforms. The library door opened and slammed shut, and through the window of the door, Griffin could see Keith running down the hallways and pushing people out of the way. He clapped Lance on the shoulder. 

“Congratulations on surviving Keith after making those comments. I’m surprised that you didn’t get a library book to the back of the head.”

Lance shrugged uneasily, glancing at the door. “Eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves.”

The librarian stalked her way over to the stack of books that Keith had dropped, picking them up gingerly. “What happened?”

“Keith.”

She frowned. “He’s normally so careful with his books… is something bothering him?”

Lance shrugged guiltily. “Maybe. He’s been pretty angry lately. ‘Scuse us.”

He and Hunk fled the library, Griffin hot on their heels.

“Go find him,” Griffin told them triumphantly, as they reached the boy’s bathroom, “I bet his eyes are nuts right now. Go on. Go, find him. Prove me right.”

Lance stopped in his tracks. “Griffin, unlike you, I  _don’t_ have a death wish! I’m  _not_ going to track down an upset Keith!”

“Even if it’s your fault he’s upset?” Griffin asked in a stage whisper, “I don’t know, Lance, those were some pretty harsh words. You should go apologize. Look him dead in the eye and—”

“If he doesn’t want to be called a psychopath, then he shouldn’t act like one! Besides, it’s none of his business what I say to my friends or to you, Griffin!”

“Cold.”

“I want to know how he heard you,” Hunk interjected, “ _I_ could barely hear you, and I was only a few feet away from you. He was definitely further.”

“Why don’t you ask  _Griffin_ that question, since he apparently knows all about Keith?” Lance squinted at Griffin. “Wait, didn’t you go to school with him before?”

“Yeah, sure, but we didn’t talk. He just sat in the corner and did his own thing. He was just the emo kid. He didn’t have any friends as far as I could tell. No one even talked to him, and honestly, I don’t think I ever heard him talk in class. He was just… there, you know? Discipline issues, or something like that.”

“So what I’m hearing is that he was always a psychotic freak.”

Griffin shrugged. “Never did his homework. Rarely answered any questions in class. He’s older than us, you know, but I think he failed a year. Don’t know why. He always did fine on quizzes and tests. He got here by stealing Takeshi Shirogane’s car.”

“And that got him  _in_?”

“I guess that Shirogane liked his style.”

“So, head case. And you wanted me to provoke him  _why_? He’d probably just steal another car and run me over!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

The half-hour warning for curfew rang, and they headed towards the dorming area. “Geeze,” Lance grumbled, pushing his hands in his pockets, “Can’t even have a conversation with your friend around here.”

Xxx

Keith leaned his head against the bathroom door, sitting with his back to the door and his knees close to his chest, one fist wrapped around his dark bangs, the other in his mouth to keep him from making any noise.

 _If he doesn’t want to be called a psychopath, then he shouldn’t act like one_.

_Super-freak._

_Head-case._

_Just the emo kid._

_Psychotic freak._

_Discipline issues._

_Bad news._

_Walking time bomb_.

Keith buried his head in his arms, shoulders shaking.

“You’ve heard it before, it’s nothing new, it’s just coming from different people,” he whispered, “You knew they thought you were weird, you knew, you knew, you knew—”

But flight groups were supposed to be  _family_. Shiro had told him that, when he talked about the Kerberos mission. They had your back. They were everything.

“Yeah, well, what do  _you_ know about family,” he asked himself, his voice cracking. He heard someone striding towards the bathroom door, and he staggered to his feet. He couldn’t let anyone see him like this!

Keith glanced at the window and clambered out, thanking his lucky stars that the library was on the first floor. He walked along the outside until he hit the dorms, and he counted windows before shimmying up one of the cables outside of the building and slipping in through his window just before curfew bell rang. The Garrison-issued computer on his desk buzzed with unread messages from Shiro. He glanced at the screen, then dismissed them all, powering off the computer completely and shutting the window, locking it firmly. After performing a routine check to make sure none of his few belongings had gone missing, he turned off the lights and laid down on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Night, Dad,” he whispered to the air around him. He rolled so that he was facing the door, and his breathing slowed down to a steady, even pace. Outside, the desert sky filled with stars, but Keith wasn’t awake to see them.

(The [Dark Forest Theory](https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/the-dark-forest-theory-a-terrifying-explanation-of-why-we-havent-heard-from-aliens-yet) is an actual thing and my personal favorite alien theory)


	3. Family History

“Keith Kogane, please come to the Commander’s office.”

There was a bit of “ooo”-ing from Keith’s classmates, but he ignored them, shutting his history textbook with a _whump_. He got up and followed the lower-ranked officer to Iverson. Some woman that he’d never seen before was standing with Iverson, holding a mug with something steaming hot, and Shiro was nowhere in sight.

“Shiro can’t make it today,” Iverson said gruffly at his inquiring glance, “He’s got training to do. Science Officer Holt is standing in.”

Keith’s eyes widened. He hadn’t realized that the woman was military. He snapped into military salute. “Ma’am.”

She laughed. “At ease. They’ve trained that into you, haven’t they? You can call me Coleen. I’m a friend of Shiro’s. We’re just going to ask a couple of questions, Keith, and then you can go back to class.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes,” Iverson growled, “Sit.”

Coleen Holt leaned against Iverson’s desk, setting her mug down on the desk as Keith sat in a chair that was too tall for him, his legs swinging aimlessly above the ground.

“You lived in the desert with your dad, is that right, Keith?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Right. So, what about your mother?”

Keith’s spine stiffened, and his legs stopped kicking. “What about her?”

“Do you know anything about her? Name? Ethnicity?”

“All I know is that she left us,” Keith managed to spit out, “And she never came back.”

“Your father never talked about her?”

Keith shrugged. “He said that she was wonderful. Out of this world, even.” To his surprise, Iverson and Coleen Holt exchanged a glance at that. “Didn’t stop her from running out while I was a baby.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, his shoulders reflexively hunching as if making himself smaller would protect him from their inquiring gazes.

“And you don’t remember anything about her? Anything at all?”

“No.”

“There were no pictures? Anything she left behind?”

Keith thought of the knife tucked away in his room, hidden under a pile of socks in his drawer. “No, ma’am. No pictures.”

There was a long pause in which Keith felt a bead of sweat drip down the back of his neck, sure that they would call him out on his lie. But then Coleen Holt smiled. “Alright, then, Keith. You’re free to go. Don’t skip class, okay?”

Keith practically jumped off of his chair, eager to get out of here as soon as possible. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Wait a moment, cadet,” Iverson growled, and Keith froze. “Aren’t you wondering why we’re asking about your mother?”

“Because… because of my DNA test?” Keith guessed.

“Correct. Once Shirogane is done with his training and you’re out of school, we’ll talk about it.”

“Yes sir.” Keith practically bolted from the room. He’d never been more desperate to get to class in his life.

Xxx

Coleen calmly sat down in the chair that Keith had vacated and took a sip of her herbal tea, grown in her own garden. “He’s lying,” she said calmly, “He _does_ have something that his mother left behind.”

“How do you know?”

Coleen chuckled. “He got the same look that my Matt always gets when he’s lying to me. Katie can lie fairly well if she’s planned out the lie beforehand, but Matt… he gets this cagey, hunted look and won’t meet your eyes. Then he exits the room as fast as possible to get away from me. I can always tell when he’s lying, and I could tell that Keith was. He might not remember his mother at all, but he certainly owns something that belongs to her.”

“We can’t base an investigation on a vague hunch that he’s lying.”

“No, you’re right, we can’t. But, if he has something that belonged to his mother, then he must have carried it around, right?” Coleen tapped the computer screen where Keith’s file glowed at her. “Track down his foster homes and ask.”

“Even if we find out what he owns, we still can’t search for it.”

“No, but he’ll be caught off-guard if we ask about a specific object, and might reveal the truth. Look into it for me, okay?”

“I’ll check.”

“Right. I’ve got to go now. The plant labs need me. I’ll be back once Keith is out of school.”

Iverson nodded his goodbye, already on the search. A moment after Coleen left his office, there was a knock. “Come in.”

James Griffin edged in. “Sir?”

“Shouldn’t you be in class, Cadet?”

“It’s my study period, sir. I came to ask about Cadet Kogane and how his eyes—”

“That’s none of your business, Cadet. We appreciate that you brought the issue to our attention and rest assured that we’re taking care of it now, but you are not privy to information regarding the situation.”

“Sir—”

“That was a dismissal, Cadet.”

“Sir.” Griffin saluted, turned and left, heading towards the dorms. He wasn’t planning on giving this up. Not now, Not ever.

Xxx

Shiro smiled at Keith. “Nervous?”

“Little bit,” Keith admitted, “They were asking about my mother earlier.”

Shiro’s eyebrows drew together. “Without me?”

“You were in training,” Keith explained.

It still didn’t sit well with Shiro, but he let it go, stepping into Iverson’s office. He brightened, happy to see a friendly face. “Coleen!”

She smiled back. “Shiro. How’s training?”

“It’s going well. Can’t complain.”

“We’re not here to discuss the Kerberos mission,” Iverson growled, and they broke back to their respective sides, Coleen standing with Iverson and Shiro standing with Keith. “Thank you. Keith, we’re going to say this plain. Your X gene isn’t human.”

Keith frowned. “My what now?”

“That’s right, I forgot about your abysmal biology grade,” Iverson muttered under his breath.

Keith felt his ears heat up, and he looked to Coleen Holt for help. She smiled. “When a baby is conceived, there are two sets of genes, one from each parent,” she explained, “Women only have X genes, while men have an X and a Y gene. Your X gene always comes from your mother, and, if you’re a girl, you’ll get another one from your father.”

“I’m not a girl,” Keith said automatically.

“I didn’t think so. Well, that means that your Y gene came from your father, and, of course, your X gene came from your mother.”

“Okay.”

“Well, your Y gene is completely normal. Nothing strange about it. But your X gene… it’s not human.”

Keith frowned. “What do you mean, it’s not human? How could it be anything else?!”

“We don’t know,” Coleen Holt said simply, “We were hoping… well, we were hoping that _you_ could tell us.”

“I can’t,” Keith said instantly, “I don’t know anything about her.”

“We decided that this non-human X gene is the reason for your condition, so we’ve been trying to find out more about her. We’re still running tests on the genes- unraveling the specific ribosomes to—”

“Holt,” Iverson barked, “He doesn’t understand what you’re saying.”

Coleen Holt shut her mouth, looking at Keith, who imagined that he probably looked _very_ lost- exactly how he felt. “We’re doing more testing on your DNA to find out more,” she said simply.

“Um… Okay…”

“If you remember _anything_ about your mother- please, do tell us. We’re hoping to get to the bottom of this soon.”

Keith bit his lip. “Um- can you- can you fix me?”

Coleen Holt looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

Keith shifted from foot to foot. “I mean… can you make it so that maybe my eyes don’t do that thing when I get angry? Or- I don’t know, anything else weird that the gene does that might make me different from everyone else?”

 _Can you fix it so that I don’t act like a psychopath_?

“I- I don’t know, Keith. We do have some grasp on genetic altering, but since you’ve gotten this far in your life, I don’t think that it’s much of an option. It’s one thing to alter an embryo’s genes so that they turn out differently as they develop, but an adolescent- I don’t think that our capabilities extend that far.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Coleen smiled at him. “You and Shiro can go, now. The commander and I need to keep talking. We just wanted to let you know what we’d uncovered so far.”

Keith nodded and left, Shiro on his heels. “Keith, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Has someone said something to you?”

“Sure. Lots of people. You’ve said stuff to me, my teachers have said a _lot_ of stuff to me, Officer Holt has—”

“You know what I mean. Something upsetting.”

“No. No one said anything upsetting to me.” Wasn’t a lie. They technically hadn’t said anything _to him_. He’d just happened to overhear.

“Griffin isn’t giving you any trouble, then?”

“No.”

Shiro hesitated. “Keith… have _I_ done anything to upset you?”

Keith blinked up at him in shock. “No! No, Shiro, you haven’t done anything! Why would you even _think_ that?!”

“Well- the other night- I thought because you never read my messages.”

Keith stared at the floor guiltily. “I… meant to read those. Later. I guess I forgot. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you think—”

“The librarian said that you’ve seemed upset. She approached me, said that you stormed out of the library the other day.”

Keith winced. “Oh, yeah.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

 _Freak_.

“I’m okay. Just… pressure. From teachers. About school, and how I’m going to fail it all, even though I’m doing just fine on quizzes and tests.”

Shiro’s face shifted immediately from confused and concerned to relieved and somewhat exasperated. “You’ve got to do your homework, Keith.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Then do it.”

“Okay, okay, fine!”

xxx

Coleen leaned against Iverson’s desk, pulling out a small screen. “We’ve been trying to digitally create a person that would be Keith’s mother. We’ve used Keith- we assumed that any facial features not from his father’s side must be from his mother’s- and we’ve been using what we’ve been able to tease out of his DNA.”

“What do you have?”

“Same face and nose shape as Keith. Keith got his hair from his father, and his eye shape from his grandmother on his father’s side, so we don’t know what those look like. The melatonin in her skin, however…” Coleen pulled up the image.

“Purple?!”

“Yes, purple. We also have some implications of strange markings on her face- makes sense if she’s another species. We haven’t found any of this species on Earth, so…”

“So, aliens.”

“Yes, so aliens. Her genes also indicate that she’s rather tall—”

“Akira Kogane wasn’t exactly short. How did the cadet end up so small?”

Coleen shrugged. “Keith’s growth patterns indicate that he might be a bit of a late bloomer. He’ll grow taller, but not quickly like the others. Most of the cadets, including the females, will probably be taller than him for a long period of time.”

Iverson chuckled. “That’ll be interesting.”

“What about your end? What have you found out about any possible belongings?”

“One of the foster homes reported a knife, but the other ones never saw it.”

“What happened when the first foster home found the knife?”

“They took it away, but it went mysteriously missing from where they hid it. They never found it on Keith, though.”

“He wouldn’t make that same mistake twice. I’m betting he’s the one who stole it, though. Which means it’s likely someplace on the Garrison grounds.”

“His room?”

“Probably.”

“A knife would be grounds to search his room, because it’s a danger to the facility and other students. We could look very quickly.”

“You don’t need to,” a voice behind them said. Griffin was standing in the doorway, holding a dagger. “I already looked.”

Iverson stood up. “Cadet, I’m on the verge of expelling you! I told you that you were done with this investigation, and that means that you are _done_! Put that back where you found it.”

“But then you’ll have to—”

“We’re not going to rely on cadets to do our jobs for us, and certainly not cadets who are nosing around where they shouldn’t! Go. Put. It. Back.”

Griffin scowled. “Yes, sir.”

Xxx

Griffin skulked back to Keith’s room, opening his dresser drawer and burying the knife under a pile of socks. He looked around, and poked at Keith’s computer. The computer showed several missed messages from Takeshi Shirogane, and Griffin’s scowl got deeper.

“What does he _see_ in Keith?” he muttered.

“What are you doing in here?”

Griffin whirled around to see Keith standing in the doorway, his arms crossed. “What are _you_ doing in here?!”

A brief look of confusion flitted across Keith’s face. “This is _my_ room.”

Griffin feigned surprise. “Oh- really? Thought it was McClain’s room, sorry. Good thing that I didn’t use any of the shaving cream yet.”

Keith scowled. “He’s three doors down.”

“Thanks- see ya.”

Griffin scooted past Keith, and went down the hallway. He could still sense Keith’s violet eyes glittering coldly, piercing his back.

Xxx

Keith watched Griffin go down the hallway, completely walking past Lance McClain’s room, and his eyes narrowed. What was he up to? Keith had already doubted that he was here to prank McClain, but this just cinched it. He went to his computer and turned it on, typing in the password. Nothing had been touched, so he performed a check of his room, making sure nothing was missing.

He opened his drawer and a stab of panic went through his heart as his hand closed on empty air where his knife should be. He sifted through the socks, finding the knife a few inches away. He frowned. So, his knife was what Griffin was after.

But why?


	4. Constellation of Flames

“Today, we’ll be discussing possible electrical fires that could occur in your planes and spacecraft and how to put them out.”

Keith began to zone as his teacher droned on. Then, the lab table reserved for demonstrations lit suddenly on fire, and he yelped, pushing himself far away and nearly knocking his chair over in the process.

_“I’m missing a student! I think he’s trapped inside!”_

Keith shook himself to get rid of the memory flash. Across the room, Griffin had reacted in a similar way, and Keith heard sniggers from his classmates.

The teacher looked at them sharply. “Kogane and Griffin, while their reactions may be appropriate and lifesaving in normal circumstances, likely would have died had that fire originated in their plane. First, they would have left the controls without putting the ship into autopilot, which could have resulted in a crash. Even if they caught the controls in time to save themselves from nosediving into the ground, they would have wasted precious time which would have allowed the fire to spread possibly uncontrollably. If they were not a safe distance from the ground, their plane would crash from a life-ending height, and even if they _were_ close enough to the ground, a safe landing and an escape from the fire that then consumed the plane would be near impossible.” Their teacher took a deep breath. “Make sense?”

The whole class nodded, including Griffin and Keith, who were both a bright red. _Why did it have to be fire_?

“Anyway, moving on, the _correct_ way to react…”

xxx

“Hey, Griffin!”

Griffin turned around as Lance chased after him, followed by Hunk. Great. These two again. What a bunch of clowns. Or, at least, Lance was a clown, but Hunk was a follower, which was just as bad, when he helped Lance in his antics.

“What?”

“What happened in class, today?”

“I freaked. It’s not a big deal.”

“Really? Why’d you freak?”

“My elementary school lit on fire once,” Griffin told them dismissively, “I’ve got a bad knee-jerk reaction to fire. It’s not a big deal. All of the teachers and students got out.”

“Oh. Was Keith there, too? He had the same reaction.”

Griffing shrugged. “Unless he was absent from school that day.” Inwardly, he frowned. He had his own reasons for being especially scared of fire that Lance and Hunk didn’t get to know about. But why would Keith…? Didn’t matter. All that mattered was figuring out what was so secretive about Keith’s weird eyes that made Iverson threaten expulsion. Whatever the secret was, Griffin wanted in.

After all, after what he’d done to let Iverson know about the problem, he deserved to be let into the inner circle, didn’t he?

Xxx

Keith looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

“I need a haircut,” he muttered out loud, tugging at his bangs.

_“I’m missing a student! I think he’s trapped inside!”_

_“I’ll find him.”_

_“Akira, no! It’s too dangerous_!”

Keith shook the memories away until he was seeing his own reflection again instead of flickering flames. He splashed water on his face to wake himself up. He’d been up last night, looking for a better spot to hide his knife. If Griffin could find it, that meant others could as well, and he didn’t want to risk that someone a little more dangerous than Griffin would use it and pin any damage on him.

He rounded the corner, considering putting it under his mattress- but that would be the first place anyone looked, wouldn’t it- and came to an abrupt halt. There was Coleen Holt, outside of his room, which was wide open. He ducked out of sight, going back around the corner and flattening himself against the wall, but too late.

“Keith!”

He cautiously slid out from his place, his arms crossed. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing to worry about,” Coleen soothed.

“Who’s in my room?”

“It’s just the commander.”

“Iverson? But—”

“It’s okay, Keith,” she said in a soothing tone, “We’re just checking that—”

There was a grunt from the room, and Iverson emerged with a knife. Keith’s knife. “Found it. Wasn’t under the mattress, Coleen, but the second place you suggested.”

Keith’s vision tunneled on the knife. “Hey! That’s mine!”

“It’s being confiscated,” Iverson told him gruffly, “Cadets aren’t supposed to have weapons on Garrison grounds. It’s Garrison property now.”

“Who told you about it?” Keith felt a surge of wrath in his stomach. “Was it Griffin?!”

“Caught him snooping, did you? I'm not surprised. That boy needs to lay off. But no, we found out from one of the homes. We figured that you still had it.”

“Give it back!”

Iverson glared at him. “Stand down, Cadet.”

“No! That’s _my_ knife! It belonged—” he turned bright red and clamped his mouth shut as he remembered that he had told them that he had nothing from his mother.

“Belonged to who?” Mrs. Holt questioned softly.

“Me!”

“ _Belonged_ being the key term,” Iverson growled, “Like I said, it’s Garrison property, now. You should have turned it in when you first got here; then we’d simply be holding it until you left the Garrison. Now it’s ours permanently.”

Keith’s vision turned red, and he charged towards Iverson. Coleen Holt caught and held him with surprising strength that suggested she’d done this before.

“Let me go!”

“I’m trying to help you, Keith,” she murmured in his ear, “Think about it. Attacking the Commander will only ensure that you _never_ get it back. In fact, it’ll get you thrown out of the Garrison sooner than you can throw the first punch. Promise you’ll let it go?”

Keith glared poisonously at both of them, but nodded in assent. Much as he hated it, Coleen Holt was right. She released him and he sprinted down the hallway, blinking back tears of anger. What else would they take from him?

Xxx

“Keith?” Shiro looked around the edges of a building. “Where are you, Keith?”

 _“Guards in movies are so stupid_.”

 _Shiro grinned at Keith. “Why’s that_?”

 _“All anyone has to do is look up! They’re always hiding in a tree or something! If they just looked up, they’d see them! No one ever looks up_!”

Shiro scanned the recreational trees, and saw a pair of legs haul themselves up quickly. But not fast enough. He went to the tree and looked up to a pair of glittering purple eyes.

“Unless you’re a squirrel, you probably shouldn’t be up there. The gardener gets really protective of his trees, and you don’t want to see him angry. It’s really hard to grow them in the desert, so we don’t want them dying.”

No reply, just bloodshot, purple eyes both begging him to go away and to stay at the same time, if that was possible. Shiro swung himself into the tree effortlessly, sitting next to Keith on the branch.

“Bad day?”

“I guess,” Keith muttered thickly, not meeting his eyes. He stared instead at the ground, and Shiro saw his shoulders tremble a little.

“Want to talk about it?”

Keith shrugged neutrally.

“Is it Griffin?”

“No.”

“Is it your teachers?”

“Kinda. One of them set the desk on fire.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that. Mr. Harris, right? He did that for our class, too. Something about fire safety in a plane, right?”

Keith nodded with a sigh. “Something like that.”

“Your dad was a fireman, right?”

“Yeah. He was a real hero.” Shiro didn’t say anything. He felt like Keith’s openness was a flock of birds sitting next to him. If he moved too suddenly or at all, it would fly away in an instant. He had to sit still, and observe quietly. Keith sighed. “Everyone told him not to run into that building, but you couldn’t tell him anything.”

“Sounds like someone I know.”

A brief smile flitted across Keith’s face. “I _swear_ I’ve been doing my homework, Shiro.”

Shiro held up his hands defensively, holding onto the branch with his knees. “Okay, okay. You’ve been doing your homework.” His hands returned to hold him safely to the branch and his feet swung idly. “So. What does your teacher lighting a desk on fire have to do with Coleen Holt?”

Keith visibly stiffened, and Shiro worried that he’d scared away that openness like the flock of birds that it was. “Nothing. Why?”

“She told me to find you. Said that you were upset. Wouldn’t tell my why, just told me to go find you. Did Iverson push you about your mom?”

Keith scowled at the ground, and Shiro could see it as it was- a knee-jerk reaction to keep tears back. “No,” he spat.

“You know you can tell me, Keith. You can trust me.”

Keith looked skeptical, as though he weren’t sure that he could trust _anyone_ , but he clenched his jaw. “He took my knife,” he said stiffly, and Shiro could see that scowl-to-hide-the-tears again. “He took my knife away and told me that I couldn’t get it back because I didn’t turn it in when I got here.”

Shiro blinked. “Whoa. Hold up. You had a knife? Here at the Garrison?”

“Yeah. My dad gave it to me. Said it was my mom’s.” He scowled again, this time a real scowl, an angry scowl. “Don’t see why I didn’t throw it out. She’s a deadbeat. I don’t want her stuff.”

“And that’s why you attempted to attack Iverson when he tried to take it?” Shiro pointed out gently.

Keith scowled even deeper. “It’s _mine_. And I didn’t want him to have it.”

“Keith, bud, it’s okay. We’ll get it back.”

“How? He said that it’s property of the Garrison now!”

“Well, for starters, he can’t hold it once you’re eighteen, provided that it was left to you.”

“That’s _five whole years_ from now!”

Shiro laughed. “Trust me, it’ll go a lot faster than you’d think. Listen. I’ll look around. See if there’s anything I can do in the meantime. I’m not going to steal it, but there’s probably paperwork. Forms and stuff that we can fill out to make an exception to the weapons rule. And then Iverson won’t have an excuse to hold it from you.” Shiro gave Keith a reassuring smile. “Okay?”

Keith gave a small return smile. “Okay.”

Shiro heard a stomping of feet and the angry yelling of the gardener. He slid out of the tree, closely followed by Keith, and he gave Keith a gentle push in the direction of the Garrison building.

“Run! Save yourself!”

Keith and Shiro bolted as the gardener gave chase to them, yelling about how hard it was to grow trees in the middle of the desert. A grin spread across Shiro’s face as they loped across the lawn, and he looked sideways at Keith. Keith’s grin rivaled his, and a laugh escaped his mouth as they slammed the doors shut behind them and quickly turned to a different hallway, trying desperately to act normal and completely overdoing it.

Shiro’s grin remained on his face, a bit goofy when paired with his upright posture, but he wasn’t going to wipe it off just yet.

It was the first time that he’d heard Keith laugh.

Xxx

Iverson peered over the scientist’s shoulder as he scanned in results of the knife taken from Keith. The scientist, who Iverson remembered vaguely to be a Professor Montgomery, looked considerably more alarmed and put off at this intrusion than Coleen Holt, and Iverson found himself wishing that she were metallurgist as well as a biologist.

“What is it?”

“Well- it’s not too different from a typical dagger in general shape and size, but we were running a diagnosis on the metal and- it doesn’t exist, sir. Not anywhere on earth.”

“Right, well, that’s what I thought,” Iverson growled, and took the knife, marching back towards the plant lab. Coleen Holt was just exiting.

“You have a moment?”

“No, I do not, sir, with all due respect,” she said mildly, “I’m late getting home as it is, and I don’t want to leave Katie any longer. She’s only ten, and I don’t feel comfortable not knowing what she’s up to.” She frowned slightly when Iverson didn’t move to let her pass. “I’m off duty now, sir.”

Iverson stepped aside. “Right, well, my office first thing tomorrow. Results from the knife are in.”

He could see that the news piqued her curiosity, but she didn’t back down. “Tomorrow’s a Saturday, sir.”

“I know that you check on your plants on the weekends anyway. Just come by.”

“Alright,” she said disapprovingly, “I’ll be there.”

He gave her a crisp nod, and she saluted. “Have a good evening, Commander.”

“You too, Officer.”

She strode down the hallway at a brisk pace, and Iverson let out a sigh, examining the knife in his hands. He frowned. It was odd that the metallurgists hadn’t removed them. He picked carefully at the knot. What was underneath that Cadet Kogane was so determined to hide?

Xxx

Keith performed his usual sweep of his room, checking his belongings. He momentarily panicked when he couldn’t find his knife, then remembered with a scowl that it was gone. His computer pinged with a message from Shiro, and he sat down at the desk.

 _Good night_.

Keith smiled a little at that, and unlocked the computer.

_Good night._

A couple of seconds later, another message popped up.

 _Sleep tight_.

Another couple of seconds. Then,

 _Don’t let the bedbugs bite_.

Keith grinned a little at that and powered off the computer, changing into his pajamas. He pulled his chair up to the window, staring out at the stars. Orion, as easy to spot as always. And there was Gemini to the northeast. Taurus on the northwest side.

Keith opened the window and clambered up the drainpipe, hauling himself onto the roof. There was a nest of blankets, and a telescope, possibly stolen from the astronomy lab. Keith peered through the lens of the telescope. It was trained on Pluto, and he could see a little moon orbiting the- was Pluto a planet? Keith had lost track of that argument. He looked again at the moon.

“Kerberos,” he murmured, “Right there.” He looked up at it again, and then searched for more constellations, easier to see from the roof than his window. The stars winked down at him, as if scolding him for being out this late. He grinned.

“Alright, alright. I'll go to bed.”

Keith slid back down the drainpipe, clambering back through his window and closing it. He pulled back his covers and snuggled into his bed with a sigh. Orion’s belt was still visible through the window, and he smiled sleepily at it.

_Twinkle, twinkle, little star…_


	5. Of Biology and Metal

Coleen clicked her way up the unusually empty hallway, making her way to Iverson’s office from the botany labs. On the way, she saw a dark head duck away, and she peered around the corner.

“Keith? Is that you?”

He scooted out sheepishly, snapping a salute. “Hello, Ma’am.”

“What are you doing, wandering the hallways alone?”

Keith flushed red. “Um- well- it’s a visiting weekend for the cadets, but…”

“No one to visit?” she guessed softly.

Keith’s blush got even darker. “Yeah. Shiro’s in training.”

Coleen smiled at him. “Why don’t you come with me to the botany labs. Have you ever been inside?”

“No.”

“Well, then, come on.”

Keith followed her cautiously, and she typed in the code to let him in, taking him past the experimental plants in their sterile containers and leading him to the greenhouse. His eyes widened, and he blinked, hard. Coleen laughed.

“You’ve grown up in this area, right? Been around here your whole life?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Bet you’ve never seen this much green in one spot,” she said proudly.

“No, ma’am.”

“Alright. I’ve got a meeting with Iverson, so I’ll be out. If you see a small gremlin lurking about on a computer, that’s my daughter, Katie. She doesn’t bite. Much.”

“Thank you,” Keith murmured, still blinking in wonder at all of the plants. Coleen smiled and tapped back down and out of the labs.

Keith stood stock still, breathing all of the scents and colors in. He hadn’t been lying before- this much green, among other colors, and on the Garrison campus! It had been here the whole time, and he hadn’t ever known that it was here, that there was this much plant life _anywhere_.

Oh, sure, they’d studied the Amazon, and all of those plants, but it hadn’t seemed _real_ , and besides, Keith’s chances of going to the Amazon was _incredibly_ unlikely, seeing as how overgrown the forest was, and how he would be flying planes that would have trouble getting through the foliage.

Keith wandered through the veritable forest, careful not to touch anything. A clicking noise met his ears, and he frowned, moving towards it quietly. He poked his head over a table and saw a short girl in jeans and a green T-shirt, typing away at a computer, a stack of books next to her. He watched for a few minutes until she looked up, her amber eyes meeting his unexpectedly.

“Hello.”

Keith startled backwards, barely managing to not slam into a hanging plant. She laughed.

“I don’t bite.”

Keith blinked. What was it that Mrs. Holt had said? “Are you Katie Holt?”

“You met my mom, then? Figures that she was the one who let you in. The code is 24601, by the way, if you want to get in whenever. Mom only _thinks_ that I don’t watch her when she types in the keycode. Who are you, then?”

“Kogane. Keith Kogane.”

“Oh, the mystery project.” Katie tilted her head curiously. “The one that Mom isn’t supposed to talk about.”

“Huh?”Katie closed her laptop, peering at Keith, her amber eyes glittering. “Mom comes home late sometimes, tells me that she had to stay because there was a genetic issue she needed to be consulted on. A certain Keith Kogane. Then she clams up and won’t tell me anything else. Tells me that I don’t have high enough clearance for her to tell me.”

“Oh.”

Katie leaned foreward. “So?”

“So, what?”

“So, what is the incredibly secret, forbidden interest in your genes? What’s so important about them?”

“If your mom isn’t supposed to talk about it, then I’m probably not supposed to, either.”

“Did they ever specifically _tell_ you not to talk about it?”

Keith thought back. “Well… no.”

“Then you can talk about it! Spill!”

“I don’t know you.”

“So? I don’t have any friends, I won’t tell anyone.” When Keith didn’t respond, she sighed. “Fiiiine. Cut me out of the secret, just like everyone else. That’s okay, I’m used to it. Dad and Matt can’t talk about Kerberos. Mom can’t talk about your genes. And now, when I finally meet someone who isn’t sworn to secrecy, he won’t tell me anything either. The Garrison takes all of the fun out of people.”

Keith glanced at the door. “I mean… I guess I can tell you a little bit.”

Xxx

“What is so very important that I’m here on a Saturday?” Coleen questioned, frowning slightly, “With all due respect, Commander, I believe that I’m entitled to weekends off.”

“The knife isn’t from Earth, just like Keith’s genes.”

“Looks like an earth knife.”

Iverson felt a bit of a smile creep onto his face. “Well, there aren’t too many different ways to make a pointy stick, are there? You’re right, though. The shape isn’t much different from that of our own knives or daggers. The difference in primarily in the material. The metal that makes up the blade isn’t found anywhere on Earth. And then there’s… this.” Iverson pulled the knife from his desk drawer, setting it on the desk. The glowing emblem he’d uncovered the night before shined up at them.

Coleen reached for it, then hesitated. “May I?”

Iverson gave a short nod, and she gingerly picked the knife up by its hilt, examining the glowing insignia. “What is this?”

“I don’t know. And neither do any of the scientists. We don’t know why it glows, the material that the glowing area is made of, where it could draw any potential energy to glow from- essentially, we know nothing about it. We don’t know what the symbol means, either.”

“Curious,” Coleen muttered, “Have you had the language experts in on it?”

“Some. They don’t know anything. They’ve never seen it before. The knife may as well be a dead end.”

“Not entirely,” Coleen mused, “Like I said, if we gather enough evidence that there’s someone out there…”

“Delaying the Kerberos mission will do nothing for us. Eventually, Sandas will send it out anyway just to look specifically for those possible aliens instead of collecting ice samples. But the launch is three years from now.”

“It’ll go by fast.” Coleen studied the knife. “Sir, I think- well, my daughter has become quite good at coding, computers, languages- those kinds of things. If she could take a look at this symbol—”

“She’s ten, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Iverson grunted. “Can’t hurt, can it? It’s not as if we have so many people here who have been able to tell us what this means. Don’t tell her what it’s about any more than she needs to know. And don’t take the knife. Just take a picture of the glyph.”

“Right.” Coleen snapped a picture of the glyph and looked towards the door. “Am I allowed to leave, now?”

“Yes. Have a good weekend, Officer.”

“Commander.”

Coleen left the office, her shoes clicking softly on the Garrison tiles as she made her way back to the labs. She typed in her code and went straight to the greenhouse. She heard Katie chattering energetically about- Coleen’s heart nearly stopped. Genes. And ribosomes. And aliens. Her mind frantically scanned the meetings with Iverson and Keith, trying to remember if they’d sworn him to secrecy. To her dismay, she realized that they had not.

They’d figured that Keith would understand the importance of keeping the secret. But then, he was only thirteen, and, to be fair, it was kind of his secret to share. She followed the voice of her daughter to find her with Keith. Keith gave Coleen a _please help_ look, and she cleared her throat. “Katie?”

Katie jumped guiltily. “Oh, hi, Mom!”

“Katie…”

“Do you know Keith?”

“I’d say so, yes.” Coleen crossed her arms, tapping one foot on the ground. “Katie, what were you two talking about?”

“Biology. And aliens, too. I like Fermi’s paradox, and the Dark Forest Theory- Keith didn’t know about either of those, you know. And—”

“Car. Now.”

Katie gulped, and left, gathering her laptop and books. Coleen raised an eyebrow at Keith.

“New friend?”

He at least had the grace to look embarrassed. “I guess.”

She gave him a long look. “Be careful with Katie,” she said finally, “She’s only ten, but her IQ would put renowned scientists to shame. She’s got a sharp mind.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

To Keith’s obvious relief, Coleen stopped scrutinizing him and exited the lab, motioning for Keith to follow. “How did you like the greenhouse?”

 “I liked it,” Keith ventured, “It was quiet.”

Coleen waited for more, but he didn’t say anything. She grinned. Keith. A man of few words. “You’re welcome to come at any time. Just ask to be let in, and I’ll be happy to leave you with the plants.”

“Thank you.”

Coleen smiled at him again. “You stay out of trouble, okay?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Coleen’s smile faded as she left him in the hallway, striding briskly towards her car. Her daughter had some explaining to do.

Xxx

Keith sighed in relief as Coleen disappeared. He rubbed his head. He didn’t know how it had happened. One moment, there was a table safely in-between them, with him giving a brief explanation of his weird eyes, and the next moment, he was sitting next to her and she had his email, as well as a full account of his genes and the theories surrounding them. He shook his head. Would have been nice if Mrs. Holt had given him the warning about being careful around Katie before that had happened.

He turned the corner, walking towards the dorms. An arm wrapped around his chest and a hand clapped over his mouth, dragging him into a different room before he could even think to yell for help.

Xxx

Katie sat stock still in the backseat of the car, waiting for her mother to make a comment. She didn’t have to wait long.

“So, you and Keith got along well?”

“Yep.” Katie didn’t say anything else, bracing herself for her mother’s attack.

“Katie, if I say that something is confidential, that means that the case is closed! It does _not_ mean that you pump someone else for information!”

“ _He_ wasn’t restricted,” Katie shot back.

“You could have gotten Keith in serious trouble!” her mother snapped, “Did you think about that?!”

Katie felt a little worm of worry rise up in her stomach. “Will they punish him?”

“They don’t need to know that this happened. _I’m_ certainly not going to tell them. But if this gets out—”

“It won’t! I wouldn’t spill confidential Garrison information!”

“That’s not the point! You can’t do things like this, Katie! You can’t take advantage of people like this! Keith didn’t know any better, and you took advantage of him! That’s got to stop, Katie. Someone might get hurt!”

“I wouldn’t try to hurt him!”

“No, I’m sure you wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t get hurt as a direct consequence of your actions! Imagine if someone overheard your conversation! There are people that want to destroy everything different! Imagine if someone like that heard about Keith’s condition! He could get hurt! Or even just someone who would use the information for their own gain! It might not hurt Keith directly, but he could be _court marshaled_ for sharing military secrets like that!”

Katie shrunk back in her seat. “I just wanted to know,” she said quietly.

“You can’t know everything. There are some things that are confidential for a reason. You shouldn’t always go poking.”

Katie scowled out the window. “Fine. I guess I’ll just be a good little factory worker then, shall I?”

Her mother glanced into the rearview mirror, and her angry gaze softened. “I’m not saying to never question. Sometimes, things should be searched. Sometimes you should pry and find the truth. Sometimes you have an _obligation_ to poke and pry. But this was not one of those times, understand?”

“I understand.”

Her mother smiled. “Good. I have a puzzle for you. I’m going to send you a picture of a glyph. I want you to see if you recognize it.”

Katie phone pinged, and she pulled up the picture. “What is this?”

“It’s a symbol that was on a knife that we believe belonged to Keith’s mother. Do you know what it is, or at least what language it is?”

Katie shook her head thoughtfully. “No, but give me some time. I might be able to find it.”

“Find it where?”

“On the Internet.”

Her mother gave a tut of disapproval. “With what? Searches, or someone else?”

Katie rolled her eyes. “You’ve already searched the entire internet thoroughly for any accounts on anything that I might possibly have without telling you. Why are you still so suspicious?!”

Coleen made a “hm” noise. “Katie, you’d better not be internet stalking anyone.”

“Glad to see that you’re concerned about _my_ safety and how a cyber predator might be watching me and stalking me.”

Her mother snorted. “You’re too smart for a cyber predator to be stalking you. You wouldn’t let that happen. I’m more worried for the other people on the internet with you.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind next Mother’s Day.”

Once they got home, Katie booted up her computer and went to her email. Her secret one, that her mother didn’t know about.

 _Hey, Keith, it’s Katie_.

She waited a couple more moments, trying to remember all of the points of her conversation with Keith. He’d mostly talked about his genes, but there was also a bit about his knife- a knife that the Garrison had taken away.

She sent him the picture of the glyph.

_Any idea what this means?_

_Yes, it’s your knife_. _I hacked my mom’s phone and found it_.

Katie cracked her knuckles and leaned back, waiting for a reply. She had a distinct feeling that Keith wouldn’t tell any adult about that symbol.

Lucky she wasn’t an adult.


	6. Psychology

Sooo, hi, it’s me, the author, I just wanted to leave a quick note here. Essentially, I was looking through my comments and I noticed something that most of them had in common.

A good number of them were rather negative about Griffin. Which is understandable, seeing as what’s happened so far. HOWEVER. I noticed something else that caused me to begin a bit of a psychological experiment. So, basically, what I noticed is that, in chapter two, everyone was feeling sorry for Keith. However, with the exception of one star person (you know who you are), _no one_ said _anything_ about Lance being the one who made Keith feel horrible. That got the wheels of my brain turning. Lance said some pretty bad things that affected Keith badly, and in fact, affected him personally worse than Griffin’s words did, seeing as how it made him feel insecure and left out, rather than the anger that Griffin gave him- anger that we know doesn’t exactly take much to set off.

So, then, why didn’t everyone jump all over Lance and call him a jerk? Why did nearly no one mention how hurtful Lance was? I’m not denying that Griffin is being a jerk. He is _definitely_ being a jerk. BUT, along those lines of him being a jerk, he actually isn’t that bad. In fact, if you look at it, here’s how the steps go. 1. Griffin sees something concerning, and when he tries to report it, he’s laughed at and dismissed. 2. Griffin gets video evidence of his words- albeit in a rather unorthodox way. 3. Even though Griffin brought the problem to the attention of the Garrison, he’s been completely frozen out. Yes, he is frozen out for a reason- confidentiality. But a thirteen-year-old brain just knows that he’s being left out of something he brought into being. I don't know if any of you have personally experienced that, but it's pretty rough as _all_ ages, not just thirteen. And, adding to my point of Griffin isn’t actually _too_ horrible, Griffin confronts Keith directly- he doesn’t just insult him in the corners, safely away from Keith, spreading words like “psychopath” around when talking about Keith. Prideful? Yes. But also less deceitful and hurtful than Lance.

Anyway, so I wrote in Katie. Katie, as stated by Coleen, has taken advantage of Keith’s lack of friends and his naivety to get the information she wanted out of him. She also straight up _lied_ to him about hacking her mother’s account to make sure that he would tell her what she wanted to know. While everyone just generally ignored how Lance acted (and I’m not too critical of that- Keith _was_ listening to a conversation not meant for his ears), there _were_ comments about Katie.

Comments about what a wonderful genius she was. Yes. What she did was clever. It’s also damaging to any future (platonic) relationship that she and Keith might have because she lied to him for the purpose of gaining his trust. See where that’s a bit of a paradox?

And yet, despite all of that, Griffin is the jerk. Katie and Lance are both fine. Granted, I _did_ write Griffin to be a bit of an antagonist. Not a villain, mind you, but an antagonist. And he _is_ a jerk, so the comments _are_ warranted. But still. I was a smidgen shocked at the reaction after Katie lied to Keith. Okay, not that shocked. I kind of predicted it would happen, but I was hoping that I wouldn’t be right.

Anyway, the comments only represent a small portion of the readers, but I’m sure that many feel the same as those who commented (and don’t take this the wrong way, I _love_ your comments even if I don’t reply, I just have a brain that immediately screams “aha” every time I see a potential psychological pattern). So, I just found it an interesting pattern/strange thing and wanted to share. New chapter will be up soonish, and please do tell me your thoughts on what I’ve said in this chapter, because I’ve got a few theories on why this happened.

You guys are the best! Keep calm and read on!


	7. Hoverbikes and Hippopotami

Keith immediately snapped his head back into the nose of his attacker and rammed both elbows backwards one after another. They hit soft flesh, and his kidnapper let go. He spun away, in fighting position as his assailant groaned, holding his nose. “Ow! Geeze! I just wanted to talk!”

Keith blinked. “Griffin?”

“Ow, yes! That was a _serious_ overreaction!”

Keith didn’t let his fighting position drop although he did relax a little bit. “I thought you were trying to kidnap me,” he said matter-of-factly.

Griffin scowled at the scarlet on his hand that had come from his nose. “Who’d want to kidnap _you_?”

Keith scowled back. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with your family?”

Griffin was still preoccupied with his nose, which was still giving a steady trickle of blood. “I pretended to be sick,” he said with a wave of his hand, pressing his sleeve to his nose, “I stuck around.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to talk to you.”

Keith was immediately on the defensive. “Why?”

“I think you know why,” Griffin replied, “Your eyes.”

“What about them?”

“They do the thing. The thing where they get all slitted and the whites turn yellow.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do!”

Keith crossed his arms, feigning confusion. “Nope.”

“Then why have you been pulled out of class?! What’s going on?”

“Counseling,” Keith lied, “Anger management counseling. I’ve attacked you twice, you know.”

“What?! They haven’t told you?! There’s no way- they _had_ to have believed me- I took a video! I _showed them a video_! Your eyes—”

Keith headed for the door. “Griffin, maybe you should get your head checked out. I _did_ hit you pretty hard with that lunch tray.”

He left the room to Griffin’s outraged splutters, a small smile creeping up on his face. Score. He finally made it to his room and powered on his computer. There were four unread messages and a picture attachment.

Keith unlocked the computer, and the first message showed up, under an email name of _Pidge Gunderson_.

 _Hey, Keith, it’s Katie_.

Keith’s heart beat faster as a picture of a glyph showed up. A very familiar glyph, although one that he typically kept wrapped up and out of view. He looked underneath at the other messages.

_Any idea what this means?_

_No,_ he typed back. And it was true. He’d never understood it. It was something that probably only his deadbeat mother understood. He glanced at the last message.

 _Yes, it’s your knife_. _I hacked my mom’s phone and found it_.

 _Thank you for showing me_ , he responded. There. Shiro would be proud. Well, first he’d have to get over the crushing disappointment that perhaps Keith had shared military secrets, then he’d have to tell Mrs. Holt that Katie had been hacking her phone, but maybe, just maybe, after that, he’d be proud.

Speak- or thought, anyway- of the devil, a new message popped up from Shiro.

 _I’m out of training. You up for a hoverbike ride_?

Keith grinned, responding with a quick yes and powering down the computer. He’d seen a jungle of plants, he’d maybe made a new friend, he’d shut Griffin up and now he would be going out into the desert on a hoverbike with Shiro.

Today was a great day.

Xxx

Katie frowned at the message. She didn’t think that Keith was lying. He had no reason to be. She knew that her rather air-headed smartness- chattering incessantly but with scientific interests- would either get a person to talk to her or get them to call her a nerd and walk away as soon as possible. Keith hadn’t done the latter, so he was willing to talk to her. Plus, she was ten. No one ever suspected a little ten-year-old of having anything notorious up their sleeves.

So, then, if Keith didn’t know what the symbol was, then the answer was… something else entirely. Great. She’d been hoping that she could do this the easy way, but…

Katie cracked her knuckles, pulling up her browser. “Let’s get coding.”

Xxx

Keith whooped in elation as the wind whipped through his hair, and the rush of air nearly stole his breath away. Shiro grinned, maneuvering his bike easily through the desert landscape. Keith grinned. Shiro wouldn’t let him pilot his own hoverbike yet. It wasn’t legal until he was fifteen. But that wouldn’t stop him from taking Keith along for rides, seated behind Shiro, and he _loved_ it.

Shiro effortlessly jumped a sand dune, making them glide through the air for a few breathless moments that lifted Keith out of his seat before they thudded back down to the hoverbike’s normal height above the ground. Keith landed back in his seat with a _whump_ , and he grinned.

When they stopped, Keith’s hair was a mess, tousled in every direction by the wind. He grinned, breathless from the thrill of his ride.

“The jump was great,” he told Shiro, who had caught his grin, “It was like being weightless!”

Shiro grinned wider. “I can do you one better. Want to try?”

“Yes!”

“Alright, back on the bike.”

Keith clambered on the bike behind Shiro, and the older man swung himself up to the controls. “You ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, hold on tight.”

Shiro revved the engines, and they flew across the sand. Keith saw the cliff up ahead. “Um- wait- Shiro—”

“Hold on!”

Shiro jumped the cliff. Keith couldn’t help himself. He screamed, _loud_. Despite the part of his brain screaming that he was going to die, he still felt another thrill with the shot of adrenaline in his system, and he felt that weightless feeling again as they nosedived towards the ground and their certain death.

At was seemed like the last possible moment, Shiro pulled up sharply, and the drifted to the ground, shooting back across the desert. Keith thudded back into his seat and nearly fell off, grabbing onto Shiro for support.

“Sorry! I forget that you’re so light!”

They sped across the sands, kicking up dust. Once the momentum of the fall had slowed considerably, Shiro eased the bike to a stop, looking back at Keith.

“How was that for weightless?”

Keith detached himself from Shiro, his legs shaky from the adrenaline.

“How did you even do that?!”

Shiro grinned. “It’s all about timing. Pull up too soon, and you won’t have the momentum to create lift. Too late, there won’t be enough lift to avoid the crash.”

“Wow. That was… wow.”

Shiro grinned even wider. It wasn’t often that he left Keith speechless. “I knew you’d like it.”

Keith’s attention wandered across the horizon, and he frowned, walking towards a small dark spot in the distance.

“Keith?”

Keith didn’t respond, and Shiro jogged after him. “Keith, where are you going? Don’t wander too far, you’ll get lost.”

Keith just kept walking like he was in a trance, and Shiro turned the hoverbike onto its “follow” mode. It floated after them as Shiro walked after Keith, who just kept going towards that black dot. As they got closer, Shiro could see that it was a house. Keith stopped on the door, and Shiro turned the hoverbike off, walking up the porch steps to stand beside Keith.

“Keith, we need to go back. I don’t know who this house belongs to, and I don’t want to be caught trespassing.”

Keith rummaged around in his jacket pockets and pulled out a key. Shiro blinked.

“…Keith?”

Keith put the key in the lock and, holding his breath, turned it. The lock squeaked, but the bolt slid back, and Keith released the breath he was holding, pushing the door open and gliding in like a ghost, Shiro following feeling vaguely that he shouldn’t intrude on Keith right now.

Keith stared around the room that he’d entered, his eyes drinking in every dust-covered detail. The floorboards creaked under his feet, but he was otherwise silent, walking to the middle of the room. On the rug was a forgotten stuffed animal, a hippopotamus, looking forlorn. Keith knelt down and picked it up gingerly, turning it over in his hands.

“Keith?” Shiro questioned quietly.

“It’s mine. I haven’t been here since…”

_“I’m missing a student! I think he’s trapped inside!”_

_“I’ll find him.”_

_“Akira, no! It’s too dangerous_!”

_“I have to- there’s a child in danger, and if I don’t get him out soon, he won’t get out at all.”_

_Keith slipped away from his class and ran up to his father. “Dad?”_

_Keith’s father gently pushed the key to their house into his hand. “I might be late home, bud. Be careful when you’re on your own, okay?”_

_“Okay_.”

_“That’s a good boy. Love you, Keith.”_

_Keith blinked in confusion at his father. “Love you too, Dad.”_

_Keith’s father gave him a sad smile, and ran back into the burning school_.

“I never managed to get my stuff. Once my dad was gone… they immediately brought me to the foster care. I just had the knife, because he’d given it to me that morning.” Keith fingered the hippo gently. “I never got to say goodbye to the place.”

Shiro knelt down next to him. “What’s his name?” he asked, gesturing towards the hippo.

The ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of Keith’s mouth. “Po.” Tears blurred the edges of his vison. “I never got to say goodbye.”

As if Shiro knew that he was no longer talking about the house, he wrapped one arm around Keith’s shoulders. “He’d be proud of you,” Shiro said quietly, “He’d be proud you’re his son.”

Keith let out a choked laugh. “Yeah, who wouldn’t be proud of the son who fights anyone and everyone.”

“Sounds like that was his nature, too. Maybe he didn’t fight people. But living out here, running into burning buildings to save people- it sounds like he was a fighter to me.”

Keith wiped at his eyes. “Yeah. I suppose so.” He sniffed. “Well. Anyway. We should go back. It’ll get late fast.”

Shiro stood up. “Yeah. You’re right.”

Keith locked the door on the way out, and Shiro saw him slip the key back into his pocket. They climbed back onto the bike, and Shiro started driving back towards the Garrison, Keith unusually subdued behind him.

It was only once they were halfway back that Shiro realized that Keith was still clutching the stuffed hippo.

Xxx

Shiro stopped at the edge of the dormitories, yawning. “Good night, Keith.”

Keith yawned too, hiding Po under his jacket. “Night, Shiro.”

There was a beep from Shiro’s watch, and Keith blinked curiously at it. “What are those?”

“Oh, these are just some elector-simulators to keep my muscles loose.”

“What’s wrong with your muscles?”

“Ah, nothing. It’s just in case. Night, Keith. Do your homework tomorrow, okay?”

“Kay.”

Keith wandered down the dormitory hallway. Griffin was waiting outside of his room. “Are you stalking me or something?”

Griffin snorted. “Fat chance. I wanted to ask you- your dad was a firefighter, right?”

Keith glared poisonously at him. “Yes,” he spat, “You don’t get to talk about him.”

Griffin held his hands up defensively. “Hey, whoa, okay. Just wondering.”

Keith pushed Griffin against the wall. “ _You_ don’t get to talk about my father. _Ever_. Got it?”

“Your eyes are doing the thing,” Griffin remarked calmly, as if he weren’t pinned up against a wall, “I’m not hallucinating.”

Keith slammed his eyes shut, hoping that no one else was in the hallway to see them.

“Ah. You _do_ know that it’s happening.”

Keith released Griffin, and he squirmed away like the snake that he was. Keith didn’t open his eyes to see where he was, just in case they were still yellow.

“Nice hippo, by the way,” Griffin remarked as he slid down the hallway, “It’s cute. Didn’t take you for a hippo kind of guy.”

Keith opened his eyes enough to snatch Po up off of the ground where he’d fallen and hide him under his jacket again. He slid back into his room and opened his eyes once he was sure that the door was closed. He gently set Po on the dresser, where the stuffed animal’s eyes would face towards the room, as if watching everything.

“Night, Dad,” Keith whispered at the stars, “Night, Po.”

 _Goodnight_ , the stars sparkled back.


	8. Flames of the Past

Mr. Harris was droning on about fire again. Keith watched the example desk carefully, waiting for it to burst into flames. He was not disappointed. This time, he got up, grabbed the fire extinguisher and put it out.

Mr. Harris gaped at him. “Kogane?”

“Is that not the correct procedure to put out a fire in a plane, sir?”

“Um- well- yes.”

Keith saluted and sat back down. Mr. Harris cleared his throat. “Well. That- that covers the basics. So. Um. We’ll be headed down to the simulators to practice in a more realistic situation.

There was a relieved cheer, and the cadets started lining up at the door. They marched down to the simulator room, and Mr. Harris called names by alphabet, starting with

“Garret, Hunk.”

Hunk gulped and went into the simulator. A few minutes later, he stumbled out, green and nauseous. Mr. Harris sighed, barely looking up from his phone, where he monitored the inside of the simulator. “Fail. Griffin, James.”

Griffin entered the simulator, his face pale. After a minute, the door opened, and he came out, white-faced and shaking.

Mr. Harris gave him a look. “Pass, but barely. You performed the correct procedure, but you panicked.” He called one of the girls in their flight group, who did moderately well, but then-

“Kogane, Keith.”

Keith entered the simulator and sat down at the controls. He piloted it as normal, soaring through the blue sky, and then- something burst into flames.

_A student being set outside through a window by a pair of hands that Keith knew to be his father's._

_The whole building collapsing in on itself, flames burning bright._

_Being held back by teachers as he attempted to run towards the burning building._

_Screaming for his father, but getting no answer._

Keith jumped and steered the plane into a nosedive before reasserting control and putting the plane in autopilot. He jumped out of his seat, going for the fire extinguisher, but a warning light told him that the plane was unstable because of something or other that was burning, and the simulator gave an almighty heave that sent him crashing into a wall and smacking his head on the fire extinguisher that he was supposed to use.

After a dizzying moment where all he could see was stars, he seized the fire extinguisher and finished the job. The simulator let him out, and Mr. Harris gave him a frown.

“Pass. Barely. You nearly crashed. Go get that bump on your head checked out by the med bay.”

Keith nodded and left as Mr. Harris called the next name.

“McClain, Lance.”

Xxx

“Keith, I want to talk to you.”

Keith stopped at the door of Mr. Harris’ classroom, turning around to face him. They were the only ones left in the classroom. “Yes, Sir?”

“Are you doing alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“What happened in the simulator today?”

“I panicked. It won’t happen again, Sir.”

Mr. Harris eyed him. “You’re very bright, Keith, and you’ve got good reflexes- how fast you managed to pull out of that nosedive is a testament to that.”

Keith said nothing, waiting for the “but” or the “so why”.

“So why don’t you ever do your homework? I know that you’re smart enough to complete the work, and you’ve clearly done the reading and know the material. So, why don’t you ever do your assignments? You could do very well if you would just…”

“Sir?”

“If you would just try harder.”

“Is that all, Sir?”

Mr. Harris sighed. “That’s all, Keith.”

Keith left the room. Griffin was outside. “This is getting creepy.”

“It’s not like I stalked you, I’m part of this class, too.”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone? Are you _looking_ to get your face rearranged?”

Griffin threw his hands up. “Maybe I just want to talk. Maybe I just want to have a normal conversation with you! You’re so suspicious all of the time, geeze!”

“Gee, I wonder why. It’s not like you haven’t ever gotten in a fight with me before!”

Griffin got a smug look on his face. “ _I’m_ not the one who throws the first punch.”

Keith shouldered his backpack and started walking away, internally counting to ten. _One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Four Mississippi. Five Mississippi._

“Hey, was your dad at the fire at the school? Back in first grade?”

_Six-_

_The school collapsing in on itself, his father still inside._

_That’s it_!

Keith swung around and flung his backpack into Griffin’s stomach, feeling a little glimmer of satisfaction through his blind rage when Griffin let out a “whoosh” of air. Keith slammed a fist into Griffin’s face. The other boy fell down, and Keith glared down at him.

“You! Shut! Up! About! My! Father!” Tears of rage and pain spilled out of Keith’s eyes, and he didn’t care- he didn’t care if Griffin saw them, he didn’t _care_ if Mr. Harris heard him and sent him to Iverson.

“IT’S YOUR FAULT!”

Griffin wriggled away, keeping his distance from Keith. “I was just asking,” he said defensively.

“HE WENT BACK IN TO SAVE _YOU_ ,” Keith half-screamed, half-sobbed, “ _YOU_ WERE TOO STUPID OR TOO SCARED TO COME OUT WITH THE REST OF THE CLASS! _YOU_ RAN THE WRONG WAY! _YOU_ GOT STUCK IN THE BURNING BUILDING! _YOU_ ARE THE REASON THAT HE’S _DEAD_!”

_Griffin, on the ground, dazed and crying, while the building collapsed in on his savior._

_Going back to school and seeing the kid who’d gotten his father killed, and having to act like everything was **normal** and pretend that he was **fine** and seeing Griffin walk around like nothing had happened, and like he wasn’t the reason that Keith’s entire world had been flipped upside-down._

_Walking around as if he weren’t the reason that Keith was now sharing a room with four other boys, all of whom were loud, obnoxious, and called him a little girl because of his hair. As if he weren’t the reason that Po and all of Keith’s things were out of his reach. As if he weren’t the reason that Keith was in a house where no one cared where he was or what he was doing- a house where no one cared about him at all_.

Keith turned heel and ran, trying to get as far away from Griffin as possible. He darted through the hallways, his eyes half-closed because he was sure that his eyes weren’t normal, and some small part of him knew that he shouldn’t be letting people know about that.

He sprinted past the dorms, turning through hallways instinctively and letting his feet take him wherever they were going. Everyone was loud, loud, _loud,_ as if someone had hit an amplify button on his ears, and he could hear every word. He found himself at the botany labs, and he fumblingly typed in the code that Katie had given him, running through the labs and into the greenhouse.

The door shut behind him, and all of the noises abruptly stopped, leaving him in a quiet, green safe haven.

_Quiet._

_Safe._

_Nothing to hurt you._

_No one here._

Keith wandered through the greenhouse, the quiet freshness of it soothing his frazzled nerves. He found a massive tree that stretched towards the ceiling, and he clambered over its roots until he found a small hollow at the base of the tree’s trunk. He fit in it perfectly, and he curled up inside of it, leaning back against the great trunk.

 _Quiet. Safe._ The tree seemed to say, _Stay. Safe_. Keith could practically feel the tree thrumming with life.

_Quiet._

_Safe_.

Xxx

Griffin rubbed at his jaw where Keith had hit him, his mind reeling.

_Shrill fire alarms going off._

_Running to save the picture he’d drawn, because it had won a prize, and his parents were so proud. It was probably just a drill, but just in case._

_Looking around and seeing nothing but flames, coughing from all of the smoke._

_Fire everywhere, nowhere safe._

_Curling into a ball on the floor, crying._

_A man, a firefighter, pushing through the flames and scooping him up, talking to him soothingly._

_Being set outside through a window, dazed and crying, moments before the building collapsed._

Griffin shook his head, wincing as his jaw throbbed. He’d never known the name of the man who had saved him. He’d never known who he was. He knew that his savior had died in the collapse- but he’d never known a name.

Keith’s dad. Griffin had suspected, when he’d learned that Keith’s father had been a fireman, but… well, that explained why he blew up every time that Griffin had mentioned his parents.

He’d never known Keith well. He’d always been just sitting quietly in the corner, and he rarely played with others on the playground. He hadn’t been surprised when he learned that Keith had no parents. But he’d never guessed… He’d never have guessed that Keith’s father was the one who’d saved him, who’d given his own life to safe Griffin’s.

Griffin got up, his stomach sore from where the backpack had hit him.

 _Okay, I deserved that_ , he thought ruefully. Although, it _had_ been a legitimate question. He  _had_ wanted to know whether Keith’s father had been there. But still. He’d deserved that, at _least_ a little bit.

Mr. Harris came out of his classroom, apparently oblivious to the whole scene that had happened right outside his room, and immediately tripped over Keith’s abandoned backpack.

“Griffin!”

“Yes, Sir!”

“Whose bag is this?”

“Mine, Sir.”

“Well, get it out of the middle of the hallway!”

Griffin scooped up Keith’s bag fluidly. “Yes, Sir.”

He hightailed it before Mr. Harris could ask any more questions.

Xxx

Keith glanced up as the warning for curfew rang. He didn’t want to leave. It was cozy here. Safe. Quiet. Away from Griffin and his weird stalker tendencies. Keith briefly entertained the thought of just telling Griffin what was going on to get him off of his back, but dismissed the idea. He was lucky to have gotten away with telling Katie. And Griffin probably wouldn’t keep his stupid mouth shut, unlike Katie.

He got up from the roots of the tree, stretching and walking towards the door. Back into the noise and bustle of the labs. None of the scientists noticed him, all of them too occupied with their plants to see him.

Keith slipped out of the labs and strode towards the dorms, rubbing his eyes with a yawn. The greenhouse was nice. Quiet. Away from people. The library had been quiet, too, but there had still been people. People who called him a psychopath.

Keith shook his head, clearing his thoughts, and opened the door to his room.

His backpack was sitting on his bed, and he realized with a start that he hadn’t picked it up after he’d thrown it at Griffin. He frowned. Who had brought it back? His stomach recoiled at the thought that Griffin might have been holding his backpack and had been able to dig through his things to look for- for anything that might prove Keith’s condition.

Keith opened the bag, but everything looked exactly the same as when he’d left it. He frowned. What game was Griffin playing?

Xxx

Iverson leaned back in his chair. “So, has your little genius found anything out yet?”

Coleen shook her head. “She’s still working on it. She says to give her a week or two, because there’s a lot of information to go through. How is it on your end?”

“Still no confirmation on the metal that the knife is made of. And the language experts are still baffled. But at least that obnoxious cadet has given up asking about it. What exactly _is_ your daughter doing to figure out the meaning?”

“Well, first she asked Keith.”

“What?! How did she even _know_ to ask Keith?! Did you tell her everything?!”

“I didn’t. Keith did.”

“He _what_?!”

“Hold on, before you take any drastic measures. We never told Keith to keep this a secret. At least, I didn’t. Did you?”

“No,” Iverson grumbled.

“He wasn’t ordered not to tell anyone, so he wasn’t exactly breaking orders, was he?”

“I suppose not.”

“And, seeing as how they _are_ Keith’s genetics, he is within his rights to tell whomever he pleases provided that he wasn’t given orders _not_ to tell?”

“Yes.”

“There, then. You can order him to not tell anyone from here on out, but his enlightening of Katie was perfectly legal. No punishment.”

“Wouldn’t be smart to punish him anyway. We can’t kick him out, because then we’d lose control of our only link to possible extraterrestrial life.”

“Right.”

“So, then, asking Kogane was a dead end?”

Coleen nodded. “He doesn’t know.”

“Or isn’t telling her, anyway. He could be lying.”

“Katie doesn’t think that he’s lying. She didn’t tell him that we’d asked her to find out what it meant; she acted like she happened upon the picture and was curious as to what it was.”

Iverson grunted. “That wasn’t very honest of her.”

“As far as she’s concerned, this is a matter of stealth. If she has to lie to get the information she wants, then she’ll do it.”

Iverson shook his head. “And she’s ten?”

“She’s very mature.”

“And devious.”

“That too.” Coleen rubbed her temples. “Sometimes I wonder if I should have stayed at home with her. If maybe the reason she’s so cutthroat is because neither I nor her father were around enough to teach her otherwise.”

“Well, in this instance it’s working out in our favor.”

“I know. But still…”

“She might have a place here, if she can figure this out when none of our language experts have been able to find the answer.”

“She’s still only ten, Iverson. She may be smart, but she’s still a child. A child who would be out of her depth if she were placed with kids much older than her.”

“If she’s so vulnerable, do you think that she’s up for this task?”

Coleen smiled. “Have a little faith in Katie, Commander. She’ll pull through.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll be no worse off than we already were.” Coleen smiled again. “And if she _does_ pull through, then we might be further ahead than we could have dreamed. That knife could be our key to finding life beyond Earth."


	9. Blade's Edge

Keith rolled over in bed as his computer pinged with a message. He must have forgotten to power it off last night.

 _Hey, do you want to go out_?

 _Shiro, it’s 6:00 in the morning_.

 _And_?

 _It’s a weekend. You know, the two days of the week when I’m **not** required to get up at six_?

 _You’ll still have one day to sleep in, then. Come on, it’ll be fun_. After a couple of seconds, there was another message. _I’ll buy you fast food_.

Keith grinned slightly. He would have gone anyway, but it was funny to know that Shiro thought he could bribe him to do anything with fast food.

 _Where are you_?

Five minutes later, he was down with the jeeps, in his jacket and shorts. Shiro wrinkled his nose.

“Is that what you’re wearing?”

“Yeah.”

“We have _got_ to get you a pair of jeans or something. You can’t keep wearing a jacket with shorts. What are you going to do when it gets cold?”

Keith shrugged. “I’ll wear my uniform all of the time.”

Shiro made a “tsk” noise as they got into the car. “Alright, first stop, the mall, to get you a pair of jeans.”

“I don’t need any jeans.”

“Yes, you do. No arguments. I’m getting some jeans for you, and then we’ll go out for breakfast.”

Keith made a noise of discontent at the idea of his breakfast being put off for a pair of jeans, but settled into the seat, watching the desert fly by outside of the window.

Shiro glanced at him and then back at the road. “Weird, huh? To think that we can survive out here? After World War Three, there wasn’t much around in the world, you know? A lot of the green spots had been destroyed. But also, cities had been leveled, and plants started to grow in their ruins. But out here… nothing changed.”

“There’s not much out here to change,” Keith replied simply.

“I guess that’s why the Garrison built out here in the first place.” Shiro shrugged. “My Jiji was just a kid in Japan when the war started. It ended a little before he would have been old enough for the draft. He was helping out beforehand, though, with the codes. He had great handwriting, and he was a fast runner, so they used him a lot. You know, when they weren’t sure who was listening and blocking messages. Sometimes a garrison wouldn’t be able to communicate with another garrison because of blocks on their communications. So he’d run messages between them, going through occupied territory. No one ever stopped a little kid running, you know? Even if they’d stop a car, no one noticed him.”

“Did he ever get caught?”

“Once. He told the enemy that he and his friends were playing war, and that the message was their secret code. No one on the other side knew the difference between the war code and a language that a little Japanese kid had made up, so they let him go. He kept running messages until the war was over. He moved to the States after that, and worked with the Garrison to erase the code from the public in case they ever needed to use it for war again.”

“I never knew…”

“That kids worked for the military in the war? Most people don’t. It was unofficial, to keep the kids out of danger, so no one really heard about it. What about your grandfather? I’d think he’d be younger than mine was, but…”

Keith shrugged. “I don’t know. He died before I was born. Lung cancer. My grandmother died of old age when I was really small, and I couldn’t tell you anything about my mother’s parents.”

“Speaking of which, I was asking about the knife… Iverson isn’t letting it go. I’m sorry.”

Keith scowled out the window. “It’s not your fault.”

“Do you know why he wanted it?”

Keith lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “To find out more about my mom, I guess. Why are they so obsessed with her?”

“Well, from what they know… she’s not human. They’re not sure what that means, and they want to know more before…”

Shiro stopped talking, and Keith turned his attention away from the window and towards Shiro. “Before what?”

“Before the Kerberos mission is sent. They want to make sure that it’s safe.”

Keith laughed incredulously. “What, do they think that I’m an alien, or something?”

Shiro didn’t answer, and the grin slid off of Keith’s face.

“Seriously? They think- they think that my mom was from outer space?! Just because my DNA isn’t normal?!”

“They don’t know, Keith. They don’t know, so they’re playing it safe. We’ve never found anything like your mom on Earth, so we’re making an assumption that it means that she’s not _from_ Earth. We don’t know anything else about her- except that she brought a knife with her.”

“What does _that_ have to do with anything?”

“If there’s an alien that could get to Earth, then that means that they have technology beyond our own. Likely, such a species would look at us the way that we look at dolphins, or chimps- relatively intelligent, but certainly not the same as us.”

“Okay. So, what does that have to do with my knife?”

“Well, it implies that she came ready for a fight, even if it was just against what to her would be a primitive species. And if we’re talking about a species who is always ready for a fight, they might be violent. Aggressive.”

“Oh.” Silence. Then, “Do you think that’s why I get into fights so easily?”

“I don’t know. Could be. Could just be how you’re raised. Genes don’t define everything about your personality, Keith. People with identical genes but different upbringings have different personalities. Is that why you asked Coleen Holt if she could change your genes?”

Keith looked back out the window. “No.”

“Are you lying to me?”

Keith didn’t meet his eyes. “Maybe.”

“Okay.” Shiro pulled into the mall parking lot. “Come on, bud.”

Keith followed Shiro into the mall. Shiro picked a store at random, and a young saleswoman came towards them like a moth to a light.

“Hi! Welcome to Billards! Will you be needing any assistance today?”

Shiro glanced around. “Um… yes, actually, can you point us towards the juniors’ department?”

“Sure! Just go straight down and then turn to the right after the men’s button-up shirts. It’ll be on your right after that. Do you need anything else?”

“No, thank you.”

They headed down the indicated aisle, and Keith glanced at Shiro. “She was eying your muscles.”

“She was not. Don’t be mean, Keith.”

“Yes, Sir.”

They walked in silence for a minute, and then Shiro glanced at Keith. “Was she really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Shiro nudged Keith. “Turn.”

“Does that ever get weird? People staring at you? I mean, because of the youngest pilot thing.”

Shiro shrugged. “It’s faded a bit. No one stares much anymore. But yeah, it was weird at first. I got used to it after a while, but at first… oh, here we are.”

Keith spent about five minutes trying on different sizes before proclaiming that it was good enough, and he could wear a belt and roll up the cuffs until he grew into them. Shiro picked the size down and insisted that Keith try _one more size_. Keith did, found that they fit, and said that he was definitely done now. Shiro got three pairs and took them to the checkout, letting out a sigh of relief when the saleswoman from before was nowhere in sight

“Where do you want to eat?”

“Fast food.”

Shiro gave what might have been a disappointed sigh and bought breakfast tacos. Keith scarfed his down, and Shiro gave him an apprehensive look.

“You know that you’re supposed to chew before you swallow, right? You’re going to choke. Relax. No one’s going to take your taco.”

Keith shrugged, his mouth full. He wasn’t so sure about that last statement.

“So, what do you want to do next?”

Keith shrugged again. His plans for the day had been to get some sleep and then maybe- _maybe_ do his homework.

“Um- let’s see… there’s a library nearby, and- hey, what’s that? There’s a crowd.”

Shiro and Keith went up an escalator and peered over the balcony. Down in the center of the crowd, someone was performing a sword dance. Keith watched in fascination as the blades flashed and twisted, moving in deadly but beautiful arcs of metal perfection.

“Wow,” he whispered quietly.

It was over too fast, in Keith’s opinion. All of a sudden, the beautiful blades stopped moving and were back in their sheaths.  Keith sighed in disappointment.

“How long do you think that she had to train to do that?”

Shiro looked down. “I don’t know. Probably a very long time. We can ask, if you like.”

“Yeah. That was- it was _amazing_.”

Shiro grinned. “Are you going to give up on being a pilot to learn sword dancing?”

“No _way_!” Keith looked up at Shiro pleadingly. “Can I do both?”

“Keith, if you try hard enough, you can do _anything_ you want to.”

“I want to do both,” Keith said firmly.

“Well, there are videos, probably, and books—”

“Are there books in the library?”

“I don’t know about the Garrison library, but the public one probably has a few.”

“Can we go?”

Shiro laughed. “Sure. You really liked that sword dance, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Alright, let’s go.”

They got back into Shiro’s jeep and drove to a big building. Inside were shelves of books- and, to Keith’s surprise, probably more than half were _fiction_ books. The Garrison library had a few fiction shelves, but the majority of the books were non-fiction.

“How many people have enough imagination to write a book?” he asked Shiro.

Shiro blinked in surprise. “Um- well- a lot, I’d think. Have you ever been in a library other than the Garrison library?”

“No.”

“Well- most public libraries have a lot of fiction books. That’s what people want to read most of the time, you know? Have you read much outside of nonfiction?”

Keith shrugged. “I read a few, when I found them.”

“When I was your age, fictional books were my best friends.” Shiro looked around at the library. “There was a lot of talk about shutting down libraries once digital books rose up, but they’re still here. There’s just something about holding a book in your hand… Well, anyway, the librarians here are really nice, and I know how to find most things in here, so…” Shiro gestured towards library. “Have fun, I guess. Go wild. Read something.”

Keith walked to a search computer and typed in “swords”. He hit enter and _three-hundred_ titles came up. He blinked. “Um…”

“You need any help?”

Keith jumped and whirled around. Katie was behind him! Well- if Katie had cut her hair. And grown about two feet. And was wearing glasses now. And had become a boy, which should have been an obvious difference the instant he’d looked at the newcomer. “Um- I was just looking for…”

The boy Katie peered over his shoulder. “You looking for fiction about swords or nonfiction about swords?”

“Nonfiction.”

“Mm.” Not-Katie reached over his shoulder and clicked a link. The library search was immediately narrowed down to about fifty titles. “Better?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“You don’t have to remember all of those numbers,” not-Katie told him, “Just remember one, and all of the other books will be nearby.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m Matt, by the way. Sorry if I was butting in on something, but you looked a little lost.”

“Oh. Yeah, thank you.”

Matt nodded. “Right, well, see you later. Hope you like what you find about swords.”

He walked away, and Keith stared at the little number, attempting to implant it on his mind before wandering the shelves, trying to find the corresponding numbers. Once he did, he followed the numbers down until…

“You have _got_ to be kidding me.”

All of the books were on the top shelf. Keith strained for them, getting on his tiptoes, but the books remained stubbornly a few inches from his reach.

Keith wandered out to find Shiro. Shiro was not where he’d left him. Keith glanced outside. The jeep was still there, so Shiro wasn’t gone… where was he?! Keith raced through the library, despite quite reprimands not to, searching frantically for the familiar shock of black bangs.

He spotted him, finally, talking to Matt, and his heart rate slowed a little, no longer beating so loud that he was sure others could hear it. He walked over towards Shiro.

“Shiro?”

Shiro looked down. “Oh, hi, Keith. This is Matt. He’s the junior science officer for the Kerberos mission.”

“We’ve already met,” Matt said with an easy, lazy grin, “Did you find those books?”

Keith felt a deep flush creep along his cheeks. “I… couldn’t reach them.” He stared both of them in the eye, silently daring them to laugh. Neither of them did, although the corners of Matt’s mouth twitched, as if he were trying his hardest not to smile and Shiro’s eyes twinkled.

“I’ll get them down for you, Keith.”

Shiro patiently followed Keith down to the books. “Up there? Which one do you want?”

Keith blinked. He hadn’t looked at the titles. “Um… all of them?”

Shiro laughed. “Tell you what, I’ll lift you up, and you can pick the ones you want, okay?”

Keith eyed him skeptically. “Won’t I be too heavy?”

Matt, who’d followed them, snorted. “Shiro probably benches twice your weight for a warm up.”

“I’m not sure whether _I_ should take that as a compliment or _Keith_ should take it as an insult,” Shiro said wryly, “But to answer your question, Keith, no, I don’t think that you’ll be too heavy, as long as I’m not holding you up for too long.”

“Okay, I guess.”

Shiro picked Keith up by his waist and swung him onto his shoulders with a grunt. “You good?”

Keith nodded. “I’m good.” He shivered. To be honest, he hadn’t liked the feeling of someone grabbing him, even Shiro, but Shiro was helping him get his books, and he wasn’t going to complain.

Keith scanned the book titles until he found one labeled “Sword Training for Dummies.” He pulled it off and held it in one hand, the other hand seizing a heavy book that seemed to be about different kinds of swords.

It was a lot heavier than he expected when he pulled it off of the shelf, and he dropped it, unable to hold on with only one hand. He watched in horror as it tumbled to drop on Shiro’s foot. Shiro yelped, instinctively pulling his injured foot off of the ground. He staggered under Keith’s weight with only one leg, and fell.

Matt caught Keith under the arms, dragging him off of Shiro as he fell so that Keith didn’t fall down with him. Keith wriggled out of his grasp once his feet were on the ground and knelt next to Shiro, who was staring up at the ceiling.

“Are you okay?! Shiro?!”

“Ow. That was a really heavy book.”

“I’m sorry!”

Shiro sat up, rubbing his booted foot. “Ah, don’t worry about it. Matt dropped a hundred-pound weight on my foot once.”

“Only because someone else pushed me!” Matt replied defensively.

“Broke my foot,” Shiro muttered to Keith, “Not fun. This was like dropping a pillow on my foot in comparison.”

Matt waved a hand. “Pft. You haven’t felt pain until my mom has accidentally stepped on your foot in high heels.” A brief look of panic passed over his face. “Uh- don’t tell her I said that.

Keith tilted his head to the side. “Your mom?”

“Coleen Holt,” Shiro informed him, “You’ve met her.”

“Oh! You’re Katie’s brother!”

“Geeze,” Matt muttered, “You’d think that getting on the Kerberos mission at my age would gain me some fame. But no, I’m just Katie’s brother. I didn’t think that she even had any friends.”

Keith scrambled to retrieve his books, which had fallen on the floor in the chaos. “Shiro, am I going to be able to take these out of the library?”

“Ah, that’s right, you don’t have a card! I forgot about that!”

“He can use mine,” Matt offered, “I’ll be back here in a few weeks anyway, so I can take the books back for you when you’re done.”

“Oh- thank you.”

Matt looked around at the shelves of books. “I know that the launch is years away, but I’m going to miss this place when I’m up in space.”

“Yeah,” Shiro replied, “There’ll be a lot of things I’ll miss.”

Keith’s gut twisted. That was right. In a few years, Shiro would be leaving him. He’d go into space, far beyond Keith’s reach. Keith would stay on Earth, squinting through his stolen telescope and pretending that he could see Shiro’s spaceship through it.

“Like you said, that’s years from now,” Shiro said firmly as they walked towards the self-checkout machine, “For now…”

“For now we have libraries,” Matt said, raising a book like a toasting glass.

“For now we have libraries,” Shiro repeated, “I’ll see you in training tomorrow. Don’t stay up too late reading.”

“Me? Never!”

Shiro chuckled, and he and Keith went outside to Shiro’s jeep. Keith scrambled in, clutching his precious books to his chest. Shiro smiled at him as he put the car in reverse. “You have a good time, bud?”

“Yeah.” Keith flipped open the heavy book that had hit Shiro’s foot and started looking at the illustration, looking for the kind of sword that the sword dancer at the mall had. He found something else instead. “I like this one.”

Shiro spared a glance at it as they got on the highway. “A Katar? I think that’s a kind of knife.”

“If you made it big enough, it would be a sword.”

“I’m not sure it would work as a sword, but you could try.”

Keith hummed contentedly. “It doesn’t really matter if it works as a sword, though, right? If it’s pointy and sharp, then it works.”

Shiro chuckled, “I guess. You probably wouldn’t have the greatest defense with that, though.”

“You don’t _need_ defense if you have a really good offense.”

After a long drive, in which Keith found more pictures of swords that he especially liked, they pulled into the Garrison parking garage. Keith hopped out of the car. “Bye, Shiro!”

“Same thing I said to Matt goes for you! Don’t stay up too late! And do your homework!”

“I will!”

Keith trotted towards his room, his face in his book, until he ran into someone. He bounced off, landing on the ground, and he finally tore his gaze off of a katana. It was Hunk, from his flight group, trying to cover up a plate of something.

“Sorry!” the bigger boy yelped.

“Oh. Um. ‘Scuse me.” Keith sidled past, and then heard Hunk give a small sigh.

“Hey, do you want a cookie?”

Keith stopped. “Do I… what?”

“Do you want a cookie,” Hunk repeated, “I just baked them- they’re fresh out of the oven. Lance and I were going to have a bit of a party.”

Keith shied away. “Um…”

Hunk sighed. “Look, about the other day- Lance is- okay, so, you’re really cool, you know that, right? Like, you fly like it’s nothing to you- I heard you _yawn_ while flying. You’re natural at it. And Lance… Lance is jealous of that. And of the attention that you get from Takashi Shirogane. The guy is Lance’s hero and… yeah. Lance wants to be better than you. To beat you. Like… like a rival, kind of. And… well… do you want a cookie or not?” Hunk held one out to him. “Family recipe. They taste great, come on. Take it.”

Keith edged carefully towards him. “He called me a psychopath,” he said hostilely.

“Ooooohhhh, boy. Okay. Yeah. He did, didn’t he?” Hunk sighed. “Lance can be… well, I know that a lot of people find him annoying. Or bratty. But… he’s been my best friend ever since I got here, and that’s because… well, because deep down he _cares_ about people. And as an extent, he cares what they think about him. And… he wants to be the best he can so that they’ll think highly of him.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You’re… well, you’re like, the ultimate thing to surpass, you know? Like, once he’s better than you, he’ll be the best there is. He’ll be on the top. And… it frustrates him, I think, that you just beat him all of the time, and you do it really easily, because…”

“I get it.”

“Right. And, I mean, that doesn’t excuse what he said. Not in the slightest. It was not something he should have said. I just wanted to tell you… I don’t know, I guess _why_ he was so harsh.”

“And he was pretty much right, too.”

“What? No! I—”

“It’s fine. You don’t have to try to spare my feelings.”

Hunk quieted, still holding out the cookie. “Um- do you…”

“Sure.” Keith took the cookie. “Thanks, Hunk.”

“I’m sorry about running into you—”

“My fault. See you in the simulators tomorrow.”

Keith walked down the hallway, his books under one arm, and the cookie in his other hand. He took a bite, and his eyebrows shot up. Okay. That was a _really_ good cookie. He ate the rest of it slowly instead of scarfing it down like he normally would, savoring each bite.

Xxx

Coleen Holt opened the door to her daughter’s room. “Bedtime, Katie.”

“Okay, just hold on a—” Katie froze, staring at her computer screen.

“Katie? Are you okay?”

Katie blinked a couple of times at the screen and then let out a crow of triumph. “Yes!”

“Keep it down, Katie, your brother and father are sleeping!”

“Mom, I’ve done it!”

“Done what?”

Katie wiggled in excitement. “I’ve cracked it! It took long enough, but I got it! Yes! Katie Holt strikes again!”

“Katie, calm down! What is it that you’ve done?”

Katie turned towards her, eyes shining. “Mom, I’ve figured out what the glyph on Keith's knife is!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Katar is an actual knife, for punching. It looks stupidly close to Keith's sword, so...


	10. Wisdom Comes from Unexpected Places

Keith wandered towards the botany labs, clutching his sword books to his chest. Katie waved to him. “Hi! We were just going in!”

Keith followed her into the greenhouse, grinning. “There’s something that I want to show you.” He led her to his tree, in all of its calm beauty. “This is my favorite spot in the greenhouse.”

“The tree?”

“Yeah. It’s just… it’s quiet.”

Katie nodded. “That’s a Pau Brasil tree. It was endangered before World War Three and after the war… well, there’s only about five hundred of these trees out there. They mostly live in Brazil, so this one here…”

“Did your mom plant it?”

Katie laughed. “How old do you think my mom is, to have planted this monster? No, this tree was found growing in the desert, on its own. So, they set up the whole botany lab and greenhouse around it. It’s twice the height of a normal Pau tree- thirty meters last time my mom measured it. We’ve tried replanting its seeds in the desert to replicate its success, but… nothing. This tree is one of a kind. There’s nothing else like it on Earth.”

Keith put a hand on the tree’s root. _Guess we’re the same like that_.

A strain of singing reached Keith’s ears, and he frowned. “What’s that?”

Katie rolled her eyes. “My mom. She’s singing to the plants because she’s convinced it makes them grow better.”

“Does it?”

“Well, to an extent, yeah, but you could achieve the same effect by breathing on them. It’s just the carbon dioxide in your breath. Plants love it. And they give out oxygen, which is probably why you like it here so much. It’s safer air to breathe.”

“It’s just… quiet. And still. Like being outside.”

Katie wrinkled her nose. “I hate the outdoors. Nothing but sunburn and poison oak. The nature in this greenhouse is the best kind of nature- cultivated, controlled, and not out to get me.”

Keith shrugged, settling down in his hollow against the tree. “I like it outdoors. It’s quiet. No one yelling orders at you. Just you and nature.”

“Yeah, you and nature locked in an endless fight with nature trying to kill you and you just trying to survive,” Katie muttered, but sat down next to him. “Whatcha got there?”

“Books about swords.”

Coleen Holt came through the green towards them. “Katie? Iverson wants to see you.”

Katie got up. “Kay. I’m coming.”

Keith sat bolt upright. What did Iverson want with Katie? Had he found out that Keith had told Katie about his genes? Was he going to interrogate her? Was he going to throw Keith out of the Garrison?

Keith followed Katie and Mrs. Holt down the hallways, his knuckles white on his book. They stopped outside of Iverson’s office, and Mrs. Holt gave Keith an apologetic look. “Can you stay out here, Keith?”

Keith gulped. “Okay.” He sat down on a chair. Another student was waiting in a chair near the counsellor’s office, but Keith didn’t even register this through the roaring in his ears. What were they talking about?

Xxx

Katie opened her laptop. “Okay, so, I was looking at the glyph, right, and I’m running it through different data bases, but none of them recognize this glyph as a letter or word in any language! Well, anyway, I was looking through some Japanese characters, and I noticed that a small section of the word for knowledge matched up somewhat with some of the glyph. So, I thought, maybe it’s a blend of languages!”

Iverson nodded. “It could be.”

“Right, well, so there’s a computer program that blends languages for you- it’s supposed to be for making up your own fantasy language, for writing or for roleplay or whatever, but I figured that it would work for this. So, I created a crossover program- it kept the first program running, and it continuously fed in every possible character in every possible glyph-like language with that bit from the Japanese for knowledge and blended the glyphs in two or three different ways to create several options.”

“Quick question,” Coleen asked, “How did you modulate it?”

“Double modulation, of course.”

Coleen nodded proudly. “That’s my girl.”

“Anyway, so I created _another_ program on top of that to screenshot any resulting glyphs that matched or were fairly close to matching the glyph on Keith’s knife. Then I just left it running and plugged in while I was at school, so it had plenty of time. Last night it finally alerted me that it had a matching blend.”

“And?”

“Well, it has the bit for knowledge, of course. And then- so, you remember the war code?”

Iverson frowned. “How did you get ahold of the war code?”

“Eh, that’s not important. The important part—”

“It’s important! That code is _not_ open for public use! Only military personnel are permitted to use that code!”

“I… hacked my father’s computer? His… military computer?”

Iverson looked at her for a long moment. “After this, I want you to work with our computer security team to make our defenses stronger.”

“Yes, sir. Anyway, the blend that matched the glyph was a mixture of that Japanese character and the code character for death. So, best I can tell, we’re looking at a glyph that means something along the lines of ‘death to knowledge’, ‘knowledge is death’, ‘knowledge and death’, or ‘knowledge or death’. Somewhere in that general ballpark. Assuming, of course, that this glyph is a blend of our Earth characters and not a completely alien language.”

Iverson gave a sharp nod. “Thank you for your input. We’ll take it into consideration. Oh, and Miss Holt? Once you’re old enough, take the Garrison into consideration for schooling. The computer department could use someone like you.”

Katie beamed as she saluted. “Yes, Sir! Mom?”

“I’ve got something I need to discuss with Iverson. You go on ahead.”

“Okay.”

Katie bounced out of the office to where Keith was waiting, his leg bouncing nervously.

“Um- so- are they mad?”

“Mad about what?”

“That I told you about the thing.”

“What? Oh, no, they asked me to decode the glyph on your knife, and I found a plausible answer. We’re not in trouble.”

Keith’s eyebrows drew together in an angry ‘v’. “They asked you to decode the glyph?”

Katie beamed. The commander himself. Telling her that she could have a place in the Garrison. “Yeah.”

“You told me that you hacked your mom’s phone to find that picture.”

The grin slid right off of Katie’s face. “Oh. I did.”

“You _lied_ to me?!”

“It wasn’t really a lie- more like I stretched the truth a bit.”

“There was no truth in that, Katie! That was a lie!”

“Well, hey, I didn’t think that you’d talk to me about the knife if you knew that I was reporting to Iverson!”

“So you _lied_ to me, Katie?! I _trusted_ you!”

“You can still trust me! Look, okay, maybe I shouldn’t have lied to you. That was a bad on my part. But if you weren’t so distrusting all of the time—”

“So you’re saying it’s _my_ fault that you lied to me?”

“Okay, now you’re twisting my words! I didn’t say that! But, I mean, if you would just trust that people know what they’re doing, they wouldn’t have to lie to you!”

Keith backed away and then turned and ran from her. She facepalmed. “That came out wrong- Keith, don’t—” She kicked the chair in frustration. He was gone.

“Wow.”

Katie whirled around to see another student, sitting on a nearby chair. “What are _you_ doing here?”

He gestured vaguely towards the office next to him. “I was just… waiting for a counselling appointment?”

“Well, mind your own business.”

He chuckled. “Trust me, you are _not_ the first person to get Keith upset like that.” He rubbed his jaw. “You got off pretty lightly, honestly.” He glanced at Katie, whose eyes were filling with tears, and patted the seat next to him. “Want to talk about it?”

Xxx

Keith raced through the hallways, holding back a scream of frustration. Katie had been lying to him, just like everyone else. He’d thought that maybe- _maybe_ \- he could consider her a friend. But she’d been lying to him the whole time.

Was she right? Was it _his_ fault that people lied to him? That if he were more open, he would be told the truth more often?

He punched the code into the botany labs and sprinted into the greenhouse, going right back to the Pau Brasil tree and curling into his hollow. The tree thrummed with that same calmness it had before.

_Stay._

_Quiet._

_Safe._

_Calm_.

Xxx

“-and I should have told him the truth, I guess, but I was worried that he wouldn’t trust me anymore and he’d clam up and not talk to me! I mean, what was I supposed to do? I like him- I think we could be friends- but my first clue towards what that glyph could be was Keith, and he wouldn’t trust me if he knew that I was talking to the adults! And I was supposed to figure out that glyph! I couldn’t just give up on that, could I? I mean, it was important! It could have had a lot to do with my dad and brother’s mission, and I don’t want them getting hurt!” Katie looked sideways at her companion, whose name was James. “Do you blame me?!”

He considered that silently for a minute. “No,” he said slowly, “I mean- okay, it was your choice to lie. But honestly… how old are you again?”

“Ten.”

“Right, well… some of the blame does lie with you. Some of it does lie with Keith for not trusting the adults. But most of the blame… it lies with the adults themselves. Iverson… and your mother.”

“What?!”

James sighed. “Look, when I was ten, I thought the adults were perfect, that they knew everything. I thought that they could do no wrong. I thought that if they made a rule, it was for the best, and I ought to follow it, letter and spirit. And I still thought that for a really long time. But… well, recently… I found that not only were they not perfect, but that they screwed up. A _lot_. They’re not perfect. They’re not infallible. And… well, they shouldn’t have put all of that on you. You’re only ten. They should _never_ have put so much responsibility on your shoulders. You shouldn’t have _had_ to make that choice to lie to Keith.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, I’m sure that your mother is a wonderful person. But she overestimated you. She held you on level with an adult.”

“I’m mature!”

“Yeah, but you’re still not an _adult_. Even mature kids are still more mentally unstable than adults. We don’t think all of our actions through. We don’t plan ahead. In other words, while you can be trusted with some responsibility, you shouldn’t have the weight of an entire space mission thrust on you, _especially_ if it involves your friends and family. Your mother and Iverson should have set down guidelines. Rules. They should have been there to help you through it. They _shouldn’t_ have left you on your own with that project. That wasn’t fair to you. It wasn’t fair to Keith. Your mother overestimated you, put too much weight on your shoulders and then left you to deal with the consequences. I’m sure she didn’t mean to. I’m sure she didn’t think it would be that important. I’m sure she thought that you could handle it because of your maturity level. But still, it isn’t something she should have done. So, that’s on her.”

“You really think so?”

James nodded. “You still made the choice to lie to Keith. That part _is_ your fault. But it isn’t a situation that you should have been allowed to get into. And that’s the adults’ fault. You were also right about Keith- that he wouldn’t trust you if he knew you were reporting to the adults. And that’s on him. But it’s _also_ on the adults, who got him in that mindset in the first place. If they were more trustworthy, he wouldn’t mistrust everyone associated with them.” James scowled at the floor. “ _I_ certainly developed a distrust of adults more recently.”

“So…”

“Like I said, you still lied to him.”

Katie sighed, rubbing her forehead. “I need to apologize.”

“Are you ready for that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t apologize if you’re not ready for it. It won’t be real, and both of you will know that.”

“And you? What did _you_ do to get on Keith’s bad side?”

James chuckled. “Plenty, trust me. All of it bad.”

“Yeah? And, what, you came to a sudden revelation that you should be nice?”

James got suddenly quiet. “I… It’s a long story.”

Katie looked at him sideways. "Are  _you_ going to apologize?"

Griffin shook his head. "No."

"Why not?"

"I... I'm not ready yet. It's not the time.

Katie tilted her head to the side. “I never asked, why are you out here? I mean, I know you said you had an appointment with the counselor, but why?”

“Ah, I had a panic attack recently, and wanted to talk it out.” James waved a hand. “It’s not a big deal, and apparently he’s too busy for me anyway.”

“It _sounds_ like a big deal!”

“It’s my problem, not yours. You said that you wanted to apologize, right? Well, let’s go track him down.”

“You’d do that?”

James snorted. “If Keith gets angry at too many more people, he’ll probably explode from the pure amount of rage. _I_ certainly don’t want to deal with that.”

Katie hopped off of her chair. “You know where to find him?”

“I know where he’s likely to be, anyway.”

James led her through the hallways to the dormitories. He knocked on one of the doors. There was no reply. He glanced sideways at Katie. “What do you think? Ignoring us, not there, or lying murdered on the floor?”

Katie shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

James opened the door. “Not there. Either that, or he’s hiding from us. I’d say he’s not here. Come on, we can check the library.”

They tramped down the hallway, and a girl gave Katie a look. “Girlfriend, Griffin?”

“No,” James replied shortly, opening the door to the library. He went straight to the librarian. “Hey, is Keith in here?”

“No.”

James shrugged. “Alright, I’m out of ideas.”

“Really? That fast?”

“Well, we’re not exactly friends!”

“Right, well, then, he’s probably in the greenhouse, at the Pau Brasil tree. Come on.”

As they got closer to the botany labs, James grabbed a student. “Hey, have you seen Kogane?”

“Yeah, he’s in the botany labs. I saw him run past. I was asking about cooking herbs- did you know that they don’t have those here? I think we should start an herb garden so that—”

“Okay, yeah, thanks Hunk, bye.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“Her name is Katie, anyway, we’ve got to get moving, nice seeing you, bye.”

Xxx

Lance looked up as Hunk came into the room. “Any luck?”

Hunk sighed. “No, and I’m nearly out of the stuff that my mom gave me. I ran into Griffin in the hallway. He was asking about Keith.”

Lance groaned. “Again? Griffin’s going to get himself _killed_!”

Hunk shot him a look. “Keith’s not that bad.”

“Hunk—”

“No, listen, Lance, I was talking to Keith the other day. He didn’t seem hostile most of the time, just… just a little shy.”

“Are we talking about the same Keith?”

“Lance, what you said hit him pretty hard. He was flinching away at the mention of your name. I think you hurt his feelings really bad. I mean, that was some really rough stuff that you said.”

Lance nestled guiltily into his blankets. “He shouldn’t have been listening in.”

“Lance…”

Lance sighed. “Yeah, okay, I’ll apologize.”

Hunk settled down next to him. “Good. You’d better. And I’ll be there when you do. No backing out.”

“I wouldn’t back out.”

“Good. Because I wouldn’t let you.”

Xxx

Katie sniffed as they got closer to the botany labs. “James, do you smell smoke?”

James sucked in a deep breath through his nose. “Yeah, I do.”

A few hallways away, people were running around in a tizzy, scientists and military personnel alike. Katie and James were separated by the panicked people, and she struggled to push through them.

“James?! Where are you?! James!” Katie tugged on a nearby scientist’s sleeve. “Hey! What’s going on, here?!”

“Kid, you need to get out of here! The botany labs are on fire!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Pau Brasil is a real tree, used in a lot of instrument making for violin, viola or cello bows- and it's endangered right now.


	11. Trust

Keith looked up as an acrid smell hit his nostrils. He knew that smell.

_Fire alarms going off._

_Teachers rounding up the students and walking them outside in single-file lines_.

 _Smoke filling the air_.

Keith jumped to his feet, looking around for a way out. But yellow flames were crawling across the plants towards him, licking hungrily at the oxygen-rich air. He pressed his back against the tree, coughing as oily black smoke filled the air that had just been clear and calming moments ago.

His eyes flicked frantically around and he moved forward, looking for some way unblocked, but the flames were raging now, a maelstrom of orange, white and blue. Keith backed up again, coughing even worse as the smoke kept rising towards him. The heat of the flames blistered against his skin, blasting him with hot air.

 _What do you do if there’s smoke- get down low, where the air is clear_. Keith looked at the floor, which was crawling with flames. _Not an option_. He coughed again, his eyes watering and blurring his vision. When he looked around, all he could see was fire, licking all over everything and blurring into one roaring, raging monster.

 _Which way is the exit_?!

Xxx

Griffin pushed through the crowd of scientists. “Katie! Where are you?!” He looked around at all of the different faces. “Hey! Have you seen a girl, real short, long brown hair?”

“Cadet, get out of here! The lab is on fire, you need to evacuate!”

A booming voice rose over the rest. “Is everyone out?!”

The scientists looked among each other, calling out names. Griffin pushed his way towards the front of the crowd, where Takeshi Shirogane was helping keep the crowd back.

“Sir—”

Shirogane barely spared a glance at him. “Stay back. It’s dangerous in there.”

“But Sir, there’s—”

“Stay back, cadet.”

“All clear,” one of the scientists called.

“Alright, let’s get an oxygen lock on this thing!”

Griffin’s eyes widened in horror. “You can’t! Keith’s still in there!”

He slipped under the guards’ restraining arms and ducked into the labs, pulling up his jacket collar to cover his nose and mouth and sprinting towards the greenhouse. There were shouts from the guards for him to come back, but it was too late.

Griffin was already gone.

Xxx

Shiro lunged for the open door. “Keith’s in there?!”

“Sir, no!” Two guards held him back from the door. “You can’t go in! You’ll get killed! It’s _way_ too hot in there!”

“There are _two cadets_ in there!”

“And we can’t lose you, too! We’re putting an oxygen lock on this fire, now, before it spreads to the rest of the Garrison!”

“NO!”

“Sir, stand down!”

“Five minutes,” Shiro said desperately, “Give him five minutes.”

The people at the lock hesitated, looking to their commander for instruction. He sighed.

“Five minutes, starting now. Then we’re locking this thing down.”

Xxx

“Keith! Where are you?!” Griffin stumbled through the fire, batting at the flames that started at his clothing. “Hey! Over here, Keith!” There was no answer. “Are you hiding from me?! Right now?!” He thought he might have heard something in response, but the flames were crackling too loudly for him to tell.

“Look, I’m sorry about what I said! You _can_ outfly pretty much anyone in the building, and I shouldn’t have made that jab about your parents! And I should have minded my own business!”

Griffin coughed, and he secured his jacket collar more firmly over his face to keep out the smoke. “Your mom _didn’t_ leave because of you, and I shouldn’t have said that she left to get away from you! I shouldn’t have searched your room, and I shouldn’t have stolen your knife! I’m sorry, okay?! My stupid comments aren’t worth your death, so please, come out! I’m sorry!”

He heard a hoarse cough, and he stumbled towards it, his eyes streaming with tears. Keith was curled on the ground in fetal position, hacking and coughing from the smoke. Small fires had started along his arm sleeves, and Griffin batted at them to put them out.

“Can you stand?!”

Keith only coughed louder in response, gasping for air and curling up tighter. Griffin hauled him up, slinging one of his arms over his shoulders. “Okay, just hang on. I’ll get you out of here, I promise! He struggled to his feet, glancing around. The way that he’d come was covered with flames.

“Okay, don’t freak, if we move fast enough, they won’t hurt.”

Griffin took in a deep breath through his jacket collar.

_Flames, licking the floor and rushing towards him._

_No. Not now. Not now, or we’re both dead_.

Griffin crouched like a sprinter and then bolted, hauling Keith’s deadweight through the flames quickly, too quickly for any of them to catch hold. They cleared the flames, emerging in the botany labs. He coughed. “Hold on. We’ll get out of this. We’re nearly there. Just hold on.”

Xxx

The commander of the guards looked at his watch. “Five minutes is up. I’m starting the oxygen lock.”

Shiro stared into the fire, hoping, praying that they would appear. Then, just as the lock started to hiss closed, he saw someone, a dark figure pushing through the flames.

“Wait!” He pushed the commander away from the airlock. “There they are, hold on!”

He ran to the doors and forced them open with his hands, shouting as the hot metal burned his hand. Griffin struggled out of the labs, dragging an unconscious Keith with him. Shiro released the doors, and they hissed shut, locking down the botany labs and the greenhouse to let the fire burn out all of the oxygen and die.

Griffin set Keith on the ground, and fell down to his knees, running a soot-covered hand through soot-covered hair.

“I just ran through a burning building,” he whispered, sitting back on the ground with a _thump_. He gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “Lordy…”

Keith coughed, curling into a ball on the ground. Shiro dropped down next to him, wincing at the burns marring Keith’s skin. “Keith? Bud?”

Keith didn’t give any indication that he’d heard him, and Shiro’s heart plummeted to his feet. Paramedics pushed him away gently, putting Keith on a medical cart and running down the hallway with him. A couple of other paramedics were talking with Griffin, but Shiro couldn’t hear their words. His vision tunneled on Keith, being taken away, and he didn’t realize that a paramedic was talking to him until he’d said Shiro’s name three times.

“Shirogane?”

“Huh?”

“Sir, your hands are blistered and burned, we need to get you to the infirmary and take care of them.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

“Sir, you need to—”

“Is he going to be okay?!” Shiro repeated.

The paramedic hesitated. “We’re not sure,” he said carefully, “He inhaled a lot of smoke.”

“I’m going with him.”

“Sir—”

“I’m _going_ _with him_.” Shiro jogged after the gurney, following it to the bustling infirmary while the paramedic chased after him, trying to take a look at his hands. Shiro finally stopped when they wheeled Keith into a separate room, and he watched as they strapped an oxygen mask to his face. The paramedic finally caught up to him, examining his hands and then running off to find something or other for his hands but at least leaving Shiro to watch the doctors work with Keith, cleaning his burned skin and checking on his breathing levels.

“He’ll be okay, right?” a voice next to him asked. It was Griffin, with Katie next to him, her face white with fear.

Shiro nodded dumbly. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat, looking away from the room with Keith in it. “He’ll be okay.”

“This is my fault,” Katie murmured, “I made him run off…”

“Hey,” Griffin said sharply, “What did we say about that?”

Katie’s spine straightened. “Right. I know. But- _I’m_ the one who gave him the code to the botany labs! If I hadn’t told him—”

“No ifs,” Griffin said firmly, “What matters is that none of us are dead. What matters is that everyone got out.”

Shiro blinked at Katie. “You know the access code?”

Katie winced. “I foresee another trip to Iverson’s office.”

Xxx

Keith heard a hiss. Pressurized air. Where was he? There was something poking his nose, and his limbs felt heavy and weak. There was something wrapped around his hands, too, and something else on his face.

He forced his eyes open and saw an oxygen tube stretching into his nose. He blinked in confusion at a snoring noise and looked to his left. Shiro was in a chair, dozing off, his hands wrapped in bandages.

“The jeans,” Keith murmured.

Shiro snapped awake, rubbing his eyes. “Wha- you’re awake!”

Keith stared at the ceiling. “The fire had to burn through my jeans before it could get to my skin,” he murmured hoarsely, “My legs would've been burned  _way_ worse if I’d been wearing shorts.” He managed a weak smile towards Shiro. “I guess it wasn’t a waste of time after all.”

Shiro’s face broke into a grin. “Good to see you conscious. How do you feel?”

“Like a million bucks.” Keith closed his eyes. “A million bucks that just went through a fire.”

“I’m calling the doctor, okay? She told me to contact her when you woke up.”

“K.”

Shiro pressed a button on the side of Keith’s hospital bed, and then sat back. “So.”

“So,” Keith repeated, “What happened to your hands?” He wiggled his own bandaged fingers and instantly regretted it as his burned skin rubbed and chafed. “We match.”

“What happened to _my_ hands? Stars, Keith, you’d think that _I_ was the one in the hospital bed!” Shiro settled back in his chair. “I burned them holding the door open.”

“Huh?”

“They were going to oxygen lock the doors to kill the fire. With you and Griffin inside.”

“What was Griffin doing in there, anyway?”

“Saving you,” Griffin said quietly from the door. He had a few bandages on his face and hands, but looked relatively unharmed, “You can thank Katie. She was the one who knew you were in there. If it weren’t for her, no one would’ve known, and you’d be burnt to a crisp right now.”

He crossed the room and set Keith’s book on swords on the hospital nightstand. “You left it outside of Iverson’s.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Griffin nodded and left, holding the door open for the doctor behind him. The doctor smiled cheerfully at Keith. “Hi, I’m Doctor Jenny.” She glanced at Shiro. “Are you his legal guardian?”

Shiro glanced at Keith. “Well- no- not officially.”

“Then you can’t be in here. Please leave.”

“But- I just—”

“I’m sorry, but his medical records are not for those without legal guardianship to be privy to.”

“I—”

“Sir, I will ask you one more time to leave, and then I’ll call security.”

Keith lifted a bandaged hand slightly. “’s okay, Shiro.”

Shiro left the room, waiting outside of the door anxiously, pacing. After what seemed like an eternity, but was actually only half of an hour, the doctor exited.

“You are keeping track of him while he is here at the Garrison? Personal project?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, he’s still suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation, but I’ve taken him off of the oxygen. He’ll be very tired for the next few days, which is perfectly normal, don’t worry. I’ll be keeping him here for a day or two, but then I’ll release him back to class. However, if he continues to show signs of smoke inhalation after a few weeks, he’ll need to come right back here.”

Shiro nodded. “Okay.”

“His lungs will take time to heal, so he won’t be doing any physical exercise- I’m writing a note to excuse him from any exercise during his classes, including the simulators. I’m also prescribing some pain medication that I will be sending to you with more instructions. I want the instructions to be followed closely- it could put him in a lot of pain if not.”

“I understand.”

Dr. Jenny nodded. “Now, about the burns- he needs to go to the nurse and get the bandages changed and the antibiotic cream reapplied every day. I told him this, but I’m going to ask you to make sure that it happens. He needs to be gentle with his skin and avoid scratching at the bandages or rubbing against anything, especially anything that has a rougher texture. The pain meds that I’m giving you for the lungs will help with any pain he might experience, but once he’s off of those, he should take just regular ibuprofen if his burns bother him.”

“Anything else?”

Doctor Jenny consulted her clipboard. “That’s it. Just make sure that he takes it easy and gets plenty of rest and hydration.”

“Will do.”

She eyed Shiro’s hands. “I suggest that you get those checked out and follow some of the same guidelines I’ve set down for Keith. Have a nice day.”

Shiro nodded and went back into Keith’s room. “Hey, how much did the doctor tell you?”

“Rest, hydration, don’t aggravate anything, don’t exercise, go to the nurse every day. Did I miss anything?”

“That’s the gist of it.”

Keith looked down at his hands, wiggling the bandaged fingers experimentally. “Do you think it’s going to scar?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Shiro replied helplessly, “It might. Dr. Jenny didn’t tell me.”

Keith nodded slightly and slowly. Then, “Is it going to stop me from flying?”

“No,” Shiro said immediately, “It won’t stop you from flying. The damage isn’t that bad.”

“Okay.”

“Keith, who let you into the botany labs?” Shiro knew the answer already, but he wanted to see what Keith said- to see where their relationship was.

Keith’s gaze got incredibly shifty, and he glanced away from Shiro. “I let myself in.”

“What about the code?”

“I know it.”

“Really? Who told you?”

Keith remained moodily silent, avoiding Shiro’s eyes.

“Keith? This is a safety thing. None of the adults knew that you were in there. If Griffin and Katie hadn’t known that you were in there, you could’ve gotten seriously hurt or have even _died_.”

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

“I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”

“What if Iverson orders you to tell?”

“Then I’ll answer him truthfully. But I’ll do everything I can to prevent them from getting in any trouble.”

Keith sighed. “...It was Katie.”

Shiro felt his chest grow fuzzy. Keith trusted him. “Thank you, Keith.”

Keith was silent for a moment. “Shiro?”

“Yeah?”

Keith bit his lower lip. “Is it my fault that people lie to me?”

“What? Where did you get _that_ idea?”

“I just… someone said that if I were more open, people would trust me more, and they wouldn’t lie to me so much.”

Shiro’s eyebrows drew together. “Who told you that?”

“It’s not important. But is it true, Shiro?”

Shiro hesitated, then sat down on the edge of Keith’s bed with a sigh. “Listen. Keith. You’re closed off for a reason, right? There’s a reason that you don’t trust people, right? You don’t have to tell me what it is, if you’re not ready. But I’m right, aren’t I?”

Keith hesitated, then nodded.

“Right. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that, do you understand? There is _nothing wrong_ with not being an open book.” Shiro looked Keith in the eye. “Understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Well. Even though there’s nothing wrong with being closed off, it… being open _does_ lead to more people talking to you and telling you things. I wouldn’t say, though, that it means people will be more _honest_ with you. It means that they’re  _more likely_ to tell you things that they wouldn’t ordinarily tell you, because you invite people in. But being closed off doesn’t make people more likely to _lie_ so much as just… not tell you the little things.”

“But it’s still my fault?”

“No! Stars, no, Keith. That’s not what I’m trying to say. Look, being closed off has advantages, too. If you’re closed off, people are more likely to tell you secrets, once you’ve earned their trust and they’ve earned yours. Not little things, like with open people, but secrets. Because they know you won’t share them lightly.”

“So…”

“It takes all kinds of people to make the world go around, Keith. We need closed off people. We need open people. We need the people in-between. You don’t have to put yourself in a box as one thing or another, and you don’t always have to change yourself to make other people happy. You’re you, Keith, and no one else is exactly like you. And that’s how it should be.” Shiro gave Keith a gentle smile. “Got it?”

Keith gave a little smile back. “Got it.” He yawned. “Thanks, Shiro.”

“Anytime.” Shiro got up. “You get some rest now, okay? I’ve got to go talk to a nurse before all of the doctors have my hide for leaving my hands like this and not getting someone to look at them. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“’K,” Keith murmured, nestling down into his covers, his eyes drifting shut, “Night.”

Shiro stopped at the door, looking back at his friend. “Goodnight, Keith,” he whispered, exiting the room and shutting the door quietly. But Keith didn’t hear him.

Keith was already asleep.


	12. Apologies

Keith shifted in his sleep and rubbed on one of his burns. Immediately, he was bumped out of his dream- a strange muddle of confusion- and into the semi-awareness that was in-between sleep and awakeness. He heard a little rustling, and his eyes snapped open, revealing a nurse who was clearing away the oxygen tank that he’d needed yesterday. Keith yawned to let him know that he was awake, rubbing at his eyes before remembering the bandages on his hands and stopping.

The nurse turned to him with a smile. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“No,” he murmured sleepily, “Who are you?”

“My name is Ralph, and I’ve been put in charge of making sure that you’re doing okay.”

Keith’s attention was caught up by a vase of flowers sitting on his nightstand, carefully away from his book. There was also a plate of cookies sitting on top of the book, since there was no more room on the nightstand. “Um- where did those come from?”

“The flowers came from Science Officer Coleen Holt and her daughter, Katie- I’m not sure who the cookies came from.”

A small smile played across Keith’s lips. Hunk.

Ralph gave him a quick smile. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours to check on your burns. I do have your medication, though, so here’s that- I wasn’t expecting you awake.”

Ralph handed Keith a pill, and he swallowed it. Ralph blinked. “Um. Did you want any water with that?”

Keith shrugged. “I’m okay.”

“Okay… Push the red button on your bed if you need me.”

Ralph exited the room, muttering something about “cadets”. Keith grinned, reaching for the plate of cookies and eating it slowly, savoring the flavor. He wondered why Hunk had brought them. They didn’t know each other very well. Maybe Hunk just liked to do nice things? Keith shifted the cookies off of his book and opened it. A small piece of paper fluttered out, neat and slightly loopy letters making a note. Keith picked it up.

_Keith-_

_I tucked this into your library book and gave it to James- I had to go, but I hope that he can give it to you. I’m not sure if you’ll get this before I can talk to you or not, but just in_

_case I can’t talk to you for a while, I wanted you to know that I’m sorry for what I said. It wasn’t true, and I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have lied to you, and I’m sorry about_

_that. I’d like to tell you what I figured out about the knife in person, though, so hopefully I’ll see you soon!_

_-Katie_.

Keith felt a small smile creep onto his face as he read her note, but then frowned in confusion. Who was James? He didn’t know a James. Griffin had brought the book. Wait. Was Griffin James? Griffin had a first name?

Keith decided that he didn’t want to know, and tucked the note safely back into his book where he wouldn’t lose it, opening back to the page that he was on and clumsily flipping pages while trying not to bend his fingers too much. Based on the light shining through the curtains, it was still morning, although late morning. Garrison classes would be in session. And he was missing all of them.

A sudden irrational worry about his homework entered his mind and he shrugged it off. Weird. He never cared about homework before, and now, suddenly, after being in a _fire_ and missing school because he was _in the hospital_ , he was worrying about his homework?

 _Shiro’s rubbing off on me_.

Time passed unbearably slowly. Ralph came in, undid his bandages, and reapplied an antibiotic cream to the burns. After one quick glance at the burned skin, Keith looked away, not wanting to look at the damage. Ralph rewrapped the bandages, gave him breakfast, and left. Keith opted to eat another cookie instead of the Garrison meal, and then opted to take a nap, because _why was he so tired_?

When he woke up again, lunch was there for him, and he bolted it down, ravenously hungry after skipping breakfast. He looked at the clock. Garrison classes would be ending soon. He’d napped longer than he’d expected. He shook his head to clear the sleep out of it. What was _wrong_ with him?

There was a knock on the door, and Griffin edged in. Keith’s muscles all tensed, preparing for fight or flight- and he knew which one he’d prefer. Griffin looked like he might be having the same reaction.

Griffin took in a deep breath. “So. In the fire. Did you hear…?”

“I heard,” Keith affirmed.

Griffin relaxed ever so slightly. “I wanted to say- I meant it. I meant what I said. Ever since I found out what your dad did for me, I’ve wanted to apologize, but… it just never seemed like the right time. And then, when I was looking for you in the fire, I realized… I realized that if I didn’t apologize right there and then, I might not get another chance. And- about what I said—”

“We’re even.”

Griffin looked at him in confusion. “What?”

“We’re even,” Keith repeated. “My dad saved you from a fire. You saved me from a fire.” Keith grinned. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re even.”

A slow grin spread across Griffin’s face. “Right. Even.” He pointed a finger at Keith. “Once you’re out of the hospital, you’re going down in the simulators. Big time.”

Keith snorted his disbelief, the grin still on his face. “I can outfly you with my eyes closed. Even if you get more practice while I’m not allowed to fly.”

“Yeah, right.” Griffin went back to the door, looking back at him with his stupid grin still up. “You heal fast so we can find out.”

“You in a hurry to lose?”

Griffin left with an amused snort, shutting the door behind him.

Keith watched him go with a small smile. _I could beat him with both hands tied behind my back, and he knows it_ , he thought, _Is that just his way of saying get well soon_?

Dr. Jenny came in not long after Griffin left and after a quick examination proclaimed that Keith was free to go. She also warned him a few more times about the various dangers, symptoms of smoke inhalation, and potential pain if he disobeyed her on the grounds of exercise or scratching at the burns.

Keith precariously balanced the cookies on top of his book and took the vase of flowers in his other hand, pushing the door open and wandering out into the hallways. Where was Shiro? Training should’ve ended-

“Need some help?”

Keith looked up at Shiro. “Yeah, maybe a little.”

Shiro took the vase and the plate of cookies, holding one item in each big hand effortlessly and following Keith towards his dorm. “Dr. Jenny released you?”

“Yup. Does this mean that I have to go to class tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Keith made a disgruntled noise and opened his door. Po looked down at him from the nightstand, looking a bit lonely, Keith thought. He set his book down on the desk, and Shiro put the cookies and the flowers up next to Po.

“I’ve got a meeting with the science officers on the Kerberos mission,” Shiro told Keith apologetically, “I’ll be back soon. You going to be okay?”

“I’ll be okay. There’s something I want to do real quick anyway.”

Once Shiro was gone, Keith gave Po a pat on the head, changed into his surviving pair of jeans and his slightly-burned jacket and then left, turning down the hallways until he reached the ruined botany labs, which were filled with workers clearing away rubble. He slipped through them, going as unnoticed as he had before the fire, until he reached the ruins of the greenhouse. He padded softly to the Pau Brasil tree, which was scorched and blackened. The calm, thriving life pulse no longer echoed from it.

“Sad, isn’t it?”

Keith jumped, looking behind him to see Coleen Holt standing behind him, holding a pot in her hands. “Oh!”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” She moved to stand next to him. “It’s dead. We’ve checked it for any sign of life, but… nothing.”

“There’s nothing you can do?”

Mrs. Holt shook her head. “But look under the ashes near its roots.”

Keith knelt down, and to his surprise, he saw little green shoots popping out of the dirt and ash. “Plants?”

“More accurately, Pau Brasil seedlings. Nearly genetically identical to our own tree. Turns out, it just needed a little extra push to seed. I guess that’s another one of this particular tree’s strange qualities.”

Keith frowned. “But what’s the point of growing and producing seeds if the only way to plant them is to die?!”

Mrs. Holt smiled ever so slightly, looking up at the Pau Brasil. “There’s an old story, about an old man, planting fruit trees. Some people came along and asked him why he was bothering to plant the trees when he wouldn’t live long enough to get any fruit. And do you know what he said?”

“What?”

“He said: ‘I was born into a world flourishing with ready pleasures. My ancestors planted for me, and I now I plant for my children.’ Maybe that’s the point of the tree. It won’t see its seedlings grow, but it’s created the next generation of Pau Brasil trees, an evolved kind that can survive in the harsh desert. They’ll be able to study these trees.”

Keith frowned. “They?”

Mrs. Holt gave him a small smile. “You’re very perceptive. I won’t be joining in on the research efforts with the other scientists; I’m retiring.”

“What?”

“Well, the fire, while it was horrible, has brought in the possibility of change in the way we research, evolution like this tree. And for the change to be nourished, the old needs to make way for the new. I’ve left my research for the next generation to pick up and finish. Maybe I won’t see the fruit of my efforts, but, well.” Mrs. Holt exhaled a small, contented sigh. “Fruit  _will_ come.”

“But _why_?”

She smiled at him, a kind, gentle smile. “Working with your genes, and working with you, Keith, has made me realize that even though I’m still here with Katie, I’ve been as much of a mother to her as your mother was to you. And through you, I’ve seen how unfair and rough that is for her. I’ve been dedicated to my research, and I never had the time to notice that she was growing up on her own and learning life lessons from others when I should have been the one to teach her. I’ve never been there for her, and… well, I want to start being more than the adult that carried and birthed her. I don’t want to be distant. I want to take care of her.”

“Oh.” Keith was quiet for a minute, and then, “What about the gene project?”

“I’ll still be working on it, it’ll just be from home and with video chat. The Commander says that he wouldn’t want any other scientists working on it. Something about how they’re all scared of him?”

“Imagine that.”

Mrs. Holt laughed, and held the pot out to him. “Here.”

Keith took the pot. A small green seedling was inside, planted in a combination of dirt and desert sand from the outdoors.

“It’s a Pau Brasil tree seedling,” Mrs. Holt told him, “I thought you might like it. Because it’s good to know that even in rough, harsh conditions, something beautiful and strong can sprout and stand tall.” She gave him a bright smile. “I hope I’ll be seeing you over the video, chat, Keith. And… I want to say thank you. For showing me what was important.”

She smiled one more time and turned to go, waving a hand. “See you, Keith.”

Keith clutched the pot close to his chest, watching her walk away. “See you,” he murmured quietly.

Xxx

Hunk nudged Lance. “When are you going to do it?”

Lance gave his friend and irritated glance. “Soon, okay?” he whispered.

“Lance, you said that you’d apologize once Keith got released from the hospital!”

Lance glanced quickly at his classmate, who seemed relatively absorbed in the book they were reading for English class. “I wasn’t expecting them to release him so quickly!”

“Lance…”

“I know, I know, I will. I told you that I would, and I’m not going to back out.”

“When?”

“End of this class.”

“Good. That’s in three, two, one…”

The bell rang, and Lance started packing up slowly, waiting for the other cadets to disperse. Hunk stayed next to him, also packing up his belongings at the rate of a snail. “Okay, we’re alone, even the teacher left, now go!”

Lance started to walk towards Keith, who at that moment lost his grip on his backpack and dropped it, spilling the contents all over the floor. Lance turned around.

“Whelp, looks like he’s busy, what a shame, I’ll have to do it later—”

Hunk pushed him towards Keith. “Get over it! You know that it’s the right time!”

Xxx

Keith winced, shaking his hand slightly. He had just been trying to pull his backpack onto the chair to zip it up, but the weight had settled unexpectedly on his burned skin, and the whole thing had tumbled to the ground. He knelt down next to his spilled textbooks, putting them back into his backpack.

One of his books nudged his hand, and he saw a tan hand holding it. “Hey, do you need some help?”

Keith looked up to see Lance McClain holding the book out to him, and he shook his head, glaring at the ground. “I’m okay. Thanks.”

“Look- man- I—” Lance let out a deep breath, his foot tapping. “I’m sorry about what I said a while ago, about you and…” Lance wisely didn’t repeat his words. “Yeah. Anyway, it wasn’t cool for me to say that, so, yeah, I’m sorry.”

_“deep down he **cares** about people.”_

_“You’re… well, you’re like, the ultimate thing to surpass, you know? Like, once he’s better than you, he’ll be the best there is. He’ll be on the top. And… it frustrates him, I think, that you just beat him all of the time, and you do it really easily, because…”_

Keith took the book. “It’s fine,” he muttered, pushing the book into his backpack and looking anywhere _but_ Lance.

“Oh- really? You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Oh, okay, cool. See you around, I guess.”

Lance bounced away, and Keith heard him conversing with Hunk. Of _course_ Hunk was behind this. He probably knew Lance better than Lance did. Then there was a squawk, and a declaration that they’d be late to their next class if they didn’t hurry, followed by pounding footsteps. Keith finished repacking his back and swung it onto his shoulders.

He might be late to his next class, but he walked, wondering if Dr. Jenny would count running to his next class so that he wouldn’t be late as exercise. Then his mind went back to all of the apologies he’d been given in the last few days, none of them expected. He smiled a little to himself. He’d told Shiro that the Garrison wasn’t for him, knowing deep down inside that it was because he didn’t fit in, and he didn’t get along with his classmates. But now… now it seemed like they’d accepted him.

Maybe Hunk had pressured Lance into apologizing.

But still.

It was nice to belong.


	13. Burned

Mr. Harris clapped his hands. “Alright, we’re back in the simulators! Not every single one of you will experience a fire in your flight- it will all be at random. I don’t want any of you knowing that a fire will or will not be in your plane because in real life, you will not have that luxury.”

He started calling names, and Keith zoned out, his mind wandering to how much his hands and face itched, and how much he wanted to scratch at the still-healing burn wounds. The thought of the school nurse frowning at him and scolding him about how he needed to let the wounds heal was enough to scare him off from itching at the burns, though.

Mr. Harris called Lance’s name, and Keith sighed. He missed the simulators, and being able to fly, even if it _was_ all an illusion. He also missed hoverbike rides with Shiro. Shiro had decided that they were “too close to exercise” and that he wouldn’t take Keith out on the hoverbike until Dr. Jenny gave him the all-clear.

Keith rubbed at his chest, which had grown tight. Why was it doing that? Keith ruled the weird tightness as nervousness that maybe Griffin _would_ beat him in the simulators- even though he knew it would never happen.

Before he knew it, the whole class had gone through the simulators, and the bell was ringing. He got up to go, but Mr. Harris put a hand on his shoulder. “Keith, wait.”

Keith stopped, his heart jumping to his throat.

“Keith, I know that you’ve been restricted due to your recent injuries, but I’m worried that without simulator time, you’ll fall behind your classmates.”

“Sir, I—”

Mr. Harris held up a hand. “I know that it’s not your fault, but as your teacher, I don’t want your chances to be ruined by the fire. You’re talented, but talent is honed by practice.”

“I can’t practice, though, the doctor said—”

“I have spoken to Doctor Jenny, and she agrees that it would be a shame for you to be put behind your flight group. She believes that since you are young, you will bounce back from your injuries fairly quickly. So she’s given you a pass to be allowed into the simulators, and even to participate in your flight group’s gym classes on alternate days.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Anytime, Keith. I want to see you succeed, as your teacher. Speaking of Doctor Jenny, though, she wants to see you today.”

“Yes, Sir. Thank you.”

Keith stopped by his room to drop his backpack off, get changed out of his Garrison uniform, and check on his tree. It was doing okay, he thought. Not as well as the tree in the greenhouse did, but it was on his windowsill. He couldn’t expect much out of it.

His computer pinged with unread messages, some from Katie, some from Shiro. Shiro’s were reminding him to see the school nurse- which he had also done when he’d brought Keith’s medication- and a reminder that his library books were due soon, and he needed to give them to Shiro to give to Matt, who would see if he could check them out again.

Katie’s message, however, was a little more interesting.

 _I’m coming to the Garrison with my mom. If you don’t want to see me, that’s okay, but I’ll be at the library around 16:30 if you’re not still angry with me_.

Keith glanced at the time. 13:00 hours. He’d have the time. He booked it to the infirmary, where a nurse promptly took him to see Doctor Jenny. The doctor smiled at Keith.

“How have you been feeling?”

“Fine.” Keith thought of the chest pain, but dismissed it. “No hoarseness. No coughing. Ma’am, is it true that I’ll be able to go back into the simulators?”

Doctor Jenny smiled at him. “Yes. I don’t think it’ll be too much of a risk, especially if you really haven’t been suffering any side effects from the smoke inhalation. Now, the school nurse has been reporting that your burns are more or less healed up, so I’m going to take a look at them, but I think we’ll be able to take the bandages off.”

Keith shrugged his jacket off, and Doctor Jenny gently unwrapped the bandages. Keith looked away while she did, staring up at the ceiling. After a couple of minutes, she nodded to herself and ordered him to pull his legs up so that she could check on the burns there. They were more minor than the burns on his hands had been, and Keith watched Doctor Jenny curiously.

“Yes, I think that we can take these off permanently, and the ones on your face. Just remember, the skin is still tender, so don’t scratch at it or rub it too hard. If it starts to get more red or inflamed, come back to me.”

Keith nodded and steeled himself, looking down at his hands and lower arms. They were mottled red, and the burned skin was a little puffier than the rest of his skin.

“Is it going to scar?”

Doctor Jenny nodded. “I’m afraid so. There are cosmetic surgeries, skin grafts- those kinds of things that will repair your skin somewhat, but they’re expensive procedures and can be very dangerous if not done right, not to mention that they’re mostly for when skin is damaged beyond scarring and—”

“No that’s not- I was just wondering if it would scar. It’s okay if it does.”

Dr. Jenny gave him an odd look that might have been pride. “You’re a very peculiar kid.”

 _Yeah, thanks, I needed reminding_.

Dr. Jenny interpreted his silence correctly. “I don’t mean it in a bad way! It’s just that most kids- well, people in general- are a little more upset about scars. It’s good that you’re not. You shouldn’t let your physical appearance bother you. It’s very mature of you to not care about the scarring.” When Keith didn’t respond, she sighed. “You can go, Keith. I’ll be seeing you in a week for a check-up on your lungs, okay?”

“Okay.”

Keith slipped his jacket back on over his shoulders, suddenly self-conscious of the red, puffy skin and wishing that his jacket sleeves extended past his elbows. Was it really okay? It would be permanent, not something that he could erase, at least not without a lot of money.

His dad had sported a burn scar on his chest. He said it reminded him of Keith’s mom. Keith snorted to himself on his way out of the infirmary. Dumb.

Keith stopped in the bathroom to look at the damage to his face. There was a blotch of red on his forehead where a flame on the floor must have licked him, but that would be covered by his hair. There was also a thick line of red extending along his cheekbone. He fingered it gently. Okay, that would be a pretty cool-looking scar.

On his way towards the library, he caught one of his flight group members- a girl whose name he didn’t know- staring at his hands and arms, and he pushed his hands into his pockets, wincing as the fabric rubbed against the tender skin. He glanced at a clock. He had time for a change before he saw Katie.

Xxx

Katie waved brightly as Keith approached. “How come you’re still in your uniform?”

Keith pushed his hands further into his pockets, hiding the damaged skin, and his sleeves settled down around his wrist, hiding his forearms from view. “I got cold in my other clothes,” he muttered.

“Oh, yeah, your jacket doesn’t cover much, does it? And this building isn’t exactly warm, is it? It’s why I wear jeans whenever I’m here.”

“What else would you wear?”

Katie shrugged. “Sometimes, on special occasions, I wear a dress. But only sometimes.” Her grin faded. “Look, Keith, what I said earlier—”

“I got your note.”

“Yeah, but I still wanted to say—”

“Forget about it, Katie.”

“But I really—”

“Katie.” Keith gave her a small smile. “It’s okay. Really.”

“Really?”

“That’s what I said.”

Katie grabbed his arms, bouncing up and down excitedly. “Oh! Right! The glyph! The knife! Do you want to know what I figured out?”

Keith winced and let out a small hiss as she rubbed on the burns. She immediately released his arms. “Oh! I’m so sorry, I forgot about the burns- are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Here, let me see—”

“Katie, wait, no—”

Katie either didn’t hear him or decided not to respond, because she pulled his sleeve up gently and hissed in a breath. “That doesn’t look too good. How bad does it hurt?”

“Not bad.” Keith pulled his arm from her grip and pulled his sleeve back down.

Her eyes lit up with understanding and she left him alone. “Right, well, about the knife—”

“Wait, I have a question first. Who’s James?”

Katie blinked. “James? In your flight group? Apparently isn’t always the nicest to you? Pulled you out of the burning botany labs?”

“Oh, Griffin.”

“No, James.”

“Pretty sure his name is Griffin, Katie. I’ve known him longer than you.”

“Well, he _told me_ his name was James!”

“My name is James Griffin,” Griffin told them, poking his head out of the library, “And would you two keep it down? The librarian’s getting annoyed.”

He disappeared back into the library, and Katie winced. “Whoops. Is there somewhere else we can talk about this?”

“Yeah- my room, I guess.”

He could tell that Katie was brimming with excitement next to him, and then, once they were safely inside of his room, the door closed, she burst.

“Okay, so it took a lot of programming, but I _think_ I know what that glyph means, and anyway, Iverson just said sure and to leave, but I wanted to actually _talk_ to somebody about it. Normally that would mean Matt, but I’ve been put under strict orders not to talk to him about it, and, I mean, it’s _your_ knife and _your_ mother, so it makes more sense to talk to you, right? Right, anyway, so, basically, to find the glyph’s meaning, I double modulated a couple of computer programs over each other, and they—”

“Katie?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re rambling.”

“Right, sorry, anyway, the glyph meaning, as far as I can tell with Earth languages, means something along the lines of Knowledge or Death, which seems like the most appropriate and likely of the different possibilities. Thoughts?”

“Um… I don’t know.”

“Right, well, so, I was thinking about those words, what do they mean, Knowledge or Death, and, well, it seems like a pretty harsh motto to go by. But that led me to think- it must be for an _exploring_ race of aliens, Keith! I don’t know- the knife might be for cutting away vegetation, or defense from wildlife? I mean, you’d think that a race that just carries around knives would be violent, but maybe not. Maybe it’s a ‘just in case’ mechanism or to get specimens. What do you think?”

“I never really… thought about it. I mean, I never really _thought_ about the whole ‘maybe I'm part alien’ thing. I just thought that the scientists would figure it out. That’s _their_ area of expertise.”

“Are you sure that they’d tell you if they _did_ figure it out? I mean, this is a matter of national security, you know. And you’re, what, twelve?”

“Thirteen.”

“Even so… I think you can trust my mom, especially now that she’s not a member of the Garrison anymore. But Iverson? I think he’d hide the truth if he thought it would be better. Or if his higher-ups decided it would be better.”

“Higher ups?”

Katie nodded. “Ever since the metallurgists decided that the material of your knife wasn’t from Earth, the whole case has gone up to Admiral Sanda. Iverson’s in charge of it on the surface, but the whole chain of command knows about it and is watching Iverson’s every move.”

“How do you know this?”

“I hacked the Garrison mainframe,” Katie replied matter-of-factly, “It only works with direct access to the mainframe- which is why I keep borrowing Dad’s computer. They’re not delaying the Kerberos mission because of your possible alien origins, though. Of course, if what I think is correct, then a meeting between our scientists and theirs would be _amazing_ , but if I’m wrong, then…”

Keith frowned. “Is Shiro in danger?”

“As far as we know? No. There aren’t any alarming signs of activity out in the Kerberos mission. Of course, the launch isn’t for three more years, and anything could happen in that time, but in general, I think we’re safe. Or, more importantly, Shiro, Matt and Dad are safe.” Katie’s hand went to her pocket. “Hang on.”

After a couple of seconds, she sighed. “My mom says ten minutes. She’s talking with Iverson.”

Keith opened the window, swinging one leg out and grabbing on the drainage pipe outside of his window. “Come on. There’s something that I want to show you.”

Xxx

“Anything new?”

Coleen opened her laptop, pulling up her 3-D model of Keith’s mother. “Still working on it, but I’ve managed to pull a few more gene expressions out- with some help.”

“Help? From who?”

“Old university friends. Don’t worry, I told them it was hypothetical, a practice for college students studying DNA to tease out gene expressions. They thought that the obviously ‘not human’ genes were hilarious, as a matter of fact. But we’ve been making progress.”

“Didn’t you leave to take care of your daughter?”

“She still has school. Anyway, through a lot of other things- recessive genes within Keith’s mother’s genes and whatnot, we’ve been creating alternate models of other forms that this race could be. But mostly we’ve been working with Keith’s mother’s dominant genes, seeing what else we could add onto the model. They’re actual genetic specialists for the Animalia Kingdom. I’m honored that you chose me for this project, but, while I do have some basics in genetics, I diverge more towards plants, and gene manipulation, introduction and grafting within the Plantae Kingdom.”

“So you brought your university friends in on it.”

“Yes, sir. Together, we’ve come very far in what we think would be an accurate picture of Keith’s mother.” Coleen tapped at the screen, and a pair of pointed ears appeared on the model, as well as a dark purple stripe on each cheek. The eyes formed and the sclera of the eyes turned yellow, dark purple irises appearing. “Right now, we’re trying to figure out the DNA that makes up her hair. It’s… very strange. Obviously, we wouldn’t know how she styles her hair, but we’ll do our best.”

“And these other forms of the species?”

Coleen pulled up a different file, this one a general sketch. “Just basics. We can’t create too many models off of only one gene set, but we’re trying to create different models- one of all of Keith’s mother’s dominant genes, and another model based on her recessive genes. Then we’ll mix and match features of both. Like I said, it won’t give us a whole picture of what their race will be like, just like taking a DNA sample from a singular human wouldn’t give you a full picture of humanity’s looks, but it’ll at least give us some idea so that we won’t be overly startled if they ever decide to make contact.”

“They already _have_ made contact,” Iverson grunted, “ _ample_ contact.”

A brief smile flitted across Coleen’s face. “Yes, I suppose they have, haven’t they? But she could have easily been a rogue one.”

“Makes sense if she’s rogue.”

“How so?”

The edges of Iverson’s mouth lifted in what might have been a smile. “Why would anyone but a rogue mate outside of their own race?”

Coleen let out a bark of laughter.

“Well,” Iverson persisted, “It’s one thing to know what another human is and knowing that they just have different facial features and skin color. It’s another thing to find a creature much smaller and far different than yourself on an unfamiliar planet, not knowing any risks you might be taking and—”

“Stop it,” Coleen gasped, her face red and her voice choking from trying not to laugh, “Please, Sir, stop it.”

Iverson _definitely_ had a smile on his face now. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure,” Coleen coughed, “Sir, with all due respect, has that been on your mind ever since we mentioned the possibility that Keith’s mother was an extraterrestrial?”

Iverson barked out a laugh. “Not when we first started, no. But once I saw the differences between the two… yes.”

“Well, if they’re used to space travel, racial differences might not bother them anymore after possibly meeting extraterrestrials.”

Iverson nodded. “I’m sure. Still.”

“Well,” Coleen cut off, “this is all we’ve discovered so far, so I’ll need to be going now. Interesting as always, Sir.”

Once she was outside of the office and the door was safely closed, Coleen burst out laughing. “What on _Earth_ ,” she gasped, “is going through that man’s mind?”

Xxx

Keith glanced down as Katie clambered up onto the roof behind him. “Come on.”

“Give me a minute. I’m not used to this.” Katie let out a puff. “You’re not feeling tired at all?”

Keith shrugged. “No.” In truth, the tightness in his chest was back, but he wasn’t about to let Katie know about that. He showed her his telescope. “It’s trained on Kerberos. Right now, the stars aren’t out, but when they are…”

Katie smiled up at the sky. “Bet it’s beautiful.” She looked out over the horizon. “Geeze, you can see the whole _desert_ from here!”

“Yeah.”

“It’s nice up here. Quiet.”

“Nature’s quiet.”

“Yeah, if you ignore the birds, bugs and other animals. Give the nature thing a rest, Keith. I will never like the outdoors.” Katie smiled brilliantly at him. “Thank you for showing me this, Keith. It’s beautiful.”

Keith felt a small glow of pleasure in his chest. Was this how you felt after you shared something with a friend? He gave a little grin, and then Katie’s phone buzzed. She gave it a glance.

“Holy crow, my mom’s looking for me!”

“Down the drainpipe! Fast!”

Katie slid down and back into Keith’s room, Keith not far behind. Keith slammed the window shut, breathless, and Katie broke into a breathless laugh. “Imagine if she knew I was up on the roof! She’d have a conniption! I’m not even supposed to do that at _home_ , not that it stops me and Matt from crawling out there anyway.”

The door opened, and Coleen Holt gave the two of them a suspicious glance. “Sharing government secrets again? What are you two up to?”

Keith and Katie glanced at each other. “Nothing,” they chorused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE know what occurred between Krolia and Keith's father, but IVERSON doesn't. 😈


	14. Breathe

“Hey, Keith.”

Keith glanced up as Shiro dropped down in a library seat next to him. “Hey.”

“So… I was thinking that your jacket is pretty much shot.”

“It’s not too bad.”

Shiro handed him a package. “It was the only red one that they had,” he said embarrassedly, “It’s a half jacket, though…”

Keith pulled out the soft red and white jacket, slipping it over his shoulders. It was big on him- the sleeves went way over his hands, and despite it being a half jacket, it still covered most of his upper body.

Shiro went a mortified red. “I’m sorry- I completely guessed on the size, we can go back and—”

“No.” Keith retracted his scarred hands into the jacket sleeves, hiding them completely from sight without stretching the fabric awkwardly. It was almost like a blanket, the thought of which made him want to take a nap. “I like it.”

Shiro smiled. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. And I’ll grow into it. Eventually.” Already, some of the girls in his flight group had surpassed him in height, towering over him. He had to look up to look them in the eye. “It’s better to have a big jacket now then to have to get a new one later.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

Keith rubbed at his eyes, which were drooping shut despite his best effort. “How come you’re here and not at training?”

“Day off. You’ve got study hall right now?”

“Yeah. Gym next.”

“Are you feeling up for it? Your lungs haven’t been giving you trouble?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

The bell rang, and Keith slipped out of the jacket, packing it neatly in his bag. “Bye, Shiro!”

“If you want, I’ll take you on a hoverbike ride after school.”

“I do want,” Keith said immediately, shouldering his bag.

“Alright, then. Meet me back here, okay?”

“Okay!”

Keith felt like he was floating his way towards the gym, his tiredness gone, replaced by excitement. He’d get to ride across the desert again, wild and free. He’d thought that it would be far too long before he ever got to, because of the doctor’s restrictions, but…

He ducked into a bathroom stall to change before slipping into line with the other cadets, hoping that no one would notice his absence from the locker room. No one had, to his relief, and the coach set them on the treadmills.

Keith glanced at the speed of his treadmill, wiping a sheen of sweat from his forehead. Six. Just like it had been before the attack. So why was it making him so much more out of breath than before?

 _Guess I’m out of shape from not exercising after the fire_ , he thought ruefully, his breath coming in short gasps. He coughed, nearly losing step on the treadmill, and the coach was there in an instant.

“Alright, Cadet?”

Keith nodded, gasping in breath, and the coach wandered off, satisfied. Keith rubbed at his chest, and then he started coughing again, wildly and uncontrollably. He fell, and the treadmill slowed to a halt, but not before it had deposited him on the ground, wheezing and coughing. Other treadmills slowed and stopped as the cadets stopped to stare at him.

“-wrong with him?”

“-he okay?”

“Everybody back!” the coach bellowed, “Get back on your treadmills, stop crowding him!”

Keith wheezed, curling up and trying to suck air into his lungs. The coach knelt next to him. “Cadet?”

“Something,” Keith gasped, “Something- on- my chest—” It was like something was sitting on him, pushing down on his ribcage, some kind of massive creature.

The coach pulled him up into a sitting up position, which _did_ make it easier to breathe- but only a little. “Garret! Go find Takeshi Shirogane and tell him what’s happening! Everyone else, keep running! I’m taking Kogane down to the infirmary! Griffin, you’re in charge! Don’t let anyone slack off!”

The coach scooped Keith up, carrying him easily. Keith managed a weak noise of protest before breaking back out into coughs. He didn’t know when they got to the infirmary, but suddenly Dr. Jenny was taking charge.

 _Guess I won’t have that hoverbike ride after all_.

Xxx

“Scuse me, Sir?”

Shiro looked up at the nervous cadet in front of him. “Yes?”

“Um- Our coach told me to come and get you- Keith’s having trouble breathing, and they took him to the infirmary—”

Shiro leapt out of his seat, flying out the door in an instant, his heart racing. He bolted to the infirmary, and a nurse led him to another room, separated from Keith by a one-way window. Dr. Jenny was with him, checking on his breathing. An icy hand clutched at Shiro’s heart. There was an oxygen mask over his face again.

“I thought he was better,” he whispered to the air, “I thought—” his hands shook. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Xxx

“Keith?”

Keith looked up at Dr. Jenny. His chest was feeling better- there had been a mist in the oxygen mask this time, and whatever it had been, it had loosened his chest. “Hi,” he said softly.

“Keith, this is very important. What happened was very serious, and I need you to answer me completely truthfully. Have you been having any problems breathing lately?”

“I- my chest felt kind of tight the other day…”

“Before or after you saw me?”

“Before. And after.”

Dr. Jenny gave a small sigh. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I- I didn’t think it was important. And—” Keith turned a bright red. “And I wanted to be in the simulators again,” he whispered.

“Keith, listen. What happened today could’ve gotten very, _very_ bad if your coach hadn’t acted so quickly. You could have actually _died_. If you feel pain like that again, you need to tell someone before—” Dr. Jenny looked up as a nurse handed her a clipboard and she started reading it. Keith’s heart sank as her face softened, and she looked up at him. “Keith? Remember how you reacted to the news that you were going to have scars from the burns?”

“Yeah.”

“You were very brave. And I’m going to need you to be brave for me again.”

Xxx

Shiro watched through the little window as Dr. Jenny talked to Keith. Keith sagged suddenly, as if he’d been punched, and Dr. Jenny said something else, something that looked like an apology. She came out the door, closing it quietly behind her.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I think that _he’d_ rather tell you,” Dr. Jenny said quietly, holding the door open for Shiro.

Shiro walked quietly in, walking towards a deflated Keith. “Hey, bud. What’s going on?”

Keith’s shoulders shook slightly. “The tests…” he gulped. “Positive for asthma.” He put his head down on his knees and closed his eyes, his shoulders shaking. “The fire…” he broke off with a snuffle.

Shiro felt his heart break in two. “Oh, Keith,” he whispered, his voice breaking.

“It happens sometimes,” Dr. Jenny said quietly from behind him, “The smoke damages the airways and the lungs, causing the airways to tighten- and produce a mucus that restricts the airways even more. It doesn’t happen too often- but often enough that it’s a risk.”

Shiro followed her out of the room into the small watching area. “Is there anything you can do for him?”

Dr. Jenny rubbed the bridge of her nose. “We can try to ensure that he lives as normal a life as possible. We’ll get an inhaler with medication- I’ll give one to you, one to him. And you two should set up a plan of notification- just in case he gets an attack while he’s alone.”

Shiro glanced through the window. Keith was still curled with his knees to his chest and his head down. He looked… small. And vulnerable. “Is it going to affect his role in the Garrison much?”

“I’m not sure. Asthma can be mostly controlled due to the technology we have in this day and age, so I wouldn’t worry too much. He’s a bright and mature student from what I’ve seen, and while I’m sure that this will bring change in his routine, he’ll be alright.”

Shiro suspected that Dr. Jenny was stretching the truth a little- even if technology had come far, a notification system wouldn’t be necessary if the situation weren’t serious. But he appreciated that she didn’t want him to worry about Keith’s chances. After all, she was only a doctor, and had no say whatsoever in the Garrison’s decisions- there was no need to make Shiro worry more by telling him facts that she didn’t know for certain.

“Thank you.”

Her cheeks dimpled. “He’s a good kid, even if he messes up sometimes. You take good care of him, okay? I need to get going- we’re working on his medication, and I’m trying to figure out dosages. Call me if anything goes wrong. We’ll be keeping him overnight again, but if there’s no other complications, we’ll release him tomorrow.”

She headed back down the hallway, and Shiro went back in the room. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Keith snuffled, “What did she say?”

“You’ll have an inhaler.”

“Right.”

“It’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Keith was quiet for a moment. “Does this mean that I can’t go on hoverbike rides anymore?”

“No,” Shiro assured him quickly, “No, you can, we’ll just have to be more careful is all.”

“And… the simulators? And gym class?”

“Same, I think. Dr. Jenny suggested that we find a way to contact each other if you have another attack like the one today while you’re alone.”

“I’ll message you.”

“Keith, today, in gym, would you have been able to message me if the coach hadn’t been there?”

Keith sighed. “No.”

“It’s okay to rely on someone, Keith. You can trust me.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

Shiro hesitated. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Okay.” Keith curled his knees to his chest. “Shiro, am I going to fail out because of all of this? I mean, I’m missing a lot of class, and—”

“You’re not going to fail out for injuries,” Shiro promised, “They’ll take it into account.” His nose crinkled. “Of course, if you don’t do your homework…”

“I’ve been doing it!

Xxx

Keith yawned as light shone in through the hospital windows and immediately panicked. It’s too late- school will have started by now, and his name, marked with absent, unexcused, will be flashing up in the attendance records.

Ralph the nurse came in, and Keith jumped on the familiar face.

“What about school?” he blurted.

“Doctor’s note. You’re excused. Dr. Jenny wants to talk to you, and then Takashi Shirogane. Don’t worry about it, cadet.”

Keith felt his heart rate settle down, and he nodded. “Okay.”

Ralph set a tray down. “Breakfast, and no skipping for cookies this time.”

Keith felt the ghost of a smile twitch at his lips. “Yes, Sir.” He _wished_ he had more of those cookies, but they were gone now. They’d been delicious. He wolfed down the Garrison breakfast, and then Dr. Jenny walked in, giving him a smile.

“How are you feeling, Keith.”

“Better.”

“Breathing?”

“Normal.”

“No chest tightness?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Okay. Well, we picked the best fit for your medication- as far as we could figure. The Garrison won’t let us have your genetic files to find the best match possible, for some reason—”

 _I’ll bet_ , Keith thought.

“—but this will work well, hopefully.” Dr. Jenny handed him an inhaler, and Keith gave it a small frown, wishing that he didn’t need it. “Do you know how and when to use one of these?”

Keith shook his head, and Dr. Jenny gave him a tutorial. Once she was done, she gave him a small smile.

“Takashi Shirogane will be here in a minute, and then you’ll be free to go to your remaining classes.”

She bumped into Shiro on her way out, and apologized before sliding out to give the two of them privacy. Shiro managed an awkward smile. “Hey, Keith. You doing okay?”

_Tightness on his chest._

_Not being able to breathe._

_Coughing and wheezing, but getting as much air as he had in the fire_.

Keith shook his thoughts away. That had been yesterday. Today, he could breathe. “I’m okay.”

“Look, so, I was researching last night, and I found this thing- it’s called invisawear. Basically, it’s a charm- you can wear it on a bracelet, and don’t worry, they’ve made ones for guys, so they’re not all girly if that bothers you. But basically, you just double click the charm, and it’ll send out an alert and a GPS location. We can connect it to my watch, so I’ll always know when you’re in trouble. Does that sound okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds okay. So- if I get an attack at night, or when no one’s around- I just click it?”

“Exactly. Or if you’re in any other kind of trouble.”

“Like what?”

Shiro shrugged. “If you’re in another fire, or you get stuck somewhere. It’s just in case. Hopefully, we won’t ever need to use it. If you’re okay with the idea, I’ll go ahead and order it.”

“Yeah, okay. Sounds good.”

“Alright,” Shiro says cheerfully, “I’m glad you’re doing okay. I got scared yesterday- but it’s okay now. You have to go to class, right?”

Keith nodded. “Yeah. I’ll go get changed and get moving.” Keith moved towards the door, and hesitated. “Thank you.”

Shiro looked up in surprise. “For what?”

“For not giving up on me,” Keith replied quietly, “Thank you for sticking around.”

Shiro smiled at him. “Keith, I will _never_ give up on you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand the other shoe of he supposed "things are looking up" arc drops.  
> Confession time: I did not come up with the idea of the panic bracelet on my own, although the model and mechanism (which come from a real company) are from my own research. I found a similar idea of a panic bracelet in a fan fiction called "Out of the Desert" by rosemaryandtime. It's a good read, a little long, but I would definitely recommend.


	15. What's Freedom?

Shiro knocked quietly on Keith’s door. “Keith? You awake?”

The door opened in response, a red-eyed Keith behind it. “Hey,” he croaked.

“Keith are you okay? You look like you’ve been—”

“Had a rough night. Couldn’t sleep. I’ll be alright.”

“You sure?”

“Sure.”

Shiro nodded. “Okay. So… the bracelet came in. It was a lot faster than I’d expected, I think they’ve got a warehouse in town.” He held it out, a leather bracelet with a circular charm on it. “I connected it to my watch and my phone already. You remember how to activate it?”

“Double click the charm,” Keith said immediately, taking it from him. He turned a little away from Shiro, and Shiro saw him shaking his Garrison uniform sleeve over his burned skin and putting his hands in his pocket.

 _Oh, Keith_.

“Thanks, Shiro. You didn’t have to do this for me.”

“But I _want_ to do it.”

Keith eyed him warily. “Are you sure? What if I wake you up in the middle of the night?”

“Then I’ll be glad that you have the bracelet and aren’t gasping for air on your own in the dark,” Shiro said firmly.

Keith hesitated and then voiced an opposite fear. “What if I press it in the middle of the night and you _don’t_ wake up? What if you don’t hear it and you’re not there?”

“Keith. Listen. I will _always_ be there. I _promise_.”

Keith hesitated, searching Shiro’s face. “I believe you,” he said firmly. And Shiro could see that he _did_ believe it, even if he was uneasy with the thought of relying on someone else, but he _did_ think that Shiro would take care of him. Shiro felt a warm glow in his chest. “You want breakfast?”

Keith nodded, slipping a plastic bag with his inhaler inside into his uniform pocket. Shiro had been given an extra inhaler- just in case Keith lost his or forgot it but needed it. Shiro hoped he’d never have to use it.

“Some of my flight group came over,” Keith supplied as they walked towards the mess hall, as if trying to fill the silence, “Hunk Garret and Griffin.”

Shiro felt a frown begin to cross his face. “Are they giving you trouble?”

“No,” Keith assured him quickly. “They’re nice. Well, Hunk is. Griffin is…” he hummed, searching for an answer. “Mmm… He’s not nice, exactly, not like Hunk, but he’s not mean, either. I think being annoying is how he’s nice? I don’t know. He’s weird.”

“He’s the one who kept provoking you?”

“Yeah. He’s not doing that anymore. Not on purpose, anyway.”

“Not on purpose?”

Keith rolled his eyes. “He keeps saying that I need to stop getting sick so that he can beat me in the simulator. I think he’s trying to say ‘get well soon’ but I don’t know.”

“And Garret?”

“He’s the one who got you yesterday.”

Shiro remembers the nervous cadet. “Oh. Friend?”

“Maybe.” Keith shrugs. “I’m waiting to see. He made me cookies after the fire, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They were really good.”

Shiro’s phone buzzed, and he looked at it with a sigh. “We’re getting some trouble with landing gear on the Kerberos ship. I’m sorry, Keith, I’ve got to handle this- I’ll be back around lunch, okay?”

Keith gave him a small, sad smile. “Yeah. Okay.” His nose crinkled. “I’ve got homework to do anyway.”

Xxx

Keith sighed as Shiro walked briskly down the hallway. He wasn’t sure whether he could call Hunk or Griffin a friend. He wasn’t sure he was ready to bestow that title on anyone other than Shiro and _maybe_ Katie.

His mind drifted to his email messaging that he’d checked that morning to find unread messages from Katie. One had been during the day of the attack, a brief message stating that she had won a science fair project, accompanied by a picture of the ribbon and her project. After that had come concerned messages asking if he was okay. Keith thought ruefully of the message he’d sent back.

 _Suffered a relapse from smoke inhalation. I’m okay now_.

“Who’s lying to who _now_ ,” he muttered to himself sadly. He didn’t want her to know. He didn’t want her to look at him with pitying eyes, or the same, sympathetic face that Dr. Jenny had given him. Suddenly, he wasn’t very hungry, and he skipped out on breakfast entirely, making his way to his first class.

“Oh, Keith! You’re back! I got a message from Dr. Jenny…” Mr. Harris trailed off. “Keith, are you alright?”

“’m okay. Am I going to be allowed in the simulator today?”

Mr. Harris nodded. “Dr. Jenny thinks that it’ll be alright, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“I am.”

“We’re still on fire safety,” Mr. Harris informed him, “We’re running simulator tests.”

“Okay.”

At the bell, the rest of his flight group filed in, and they headed down to the simulators. Mr. Harris started calling names, and they filed into the simulators. Keith’s turn arrived, and he walked in, heart thumping. It had been so long since he’d run a simulation- could he still do it?

But his hands found their place on the controls and he relaxed as the familiar humming noise washed over him, all of the controls easy and natural.

Then everything burst into flames.

_White hot flames blocking everything._

_Smoke filling his lungs._

_Ribcage heaving wildly, but finding no air._

_Burning flames on his arms, legs and face_.

Keith pushed himself back with a yell and staggered backwards out of the simulator. The cool monotone voice telling him that he’d failed echoed in his ears, nearly drowned out by the beating of his frantic heart.

Griffin gave him a sympathetic glance, and Mr. Harris marked the failure calmly in his book. “McClain, Lance.”

After class, Mr. Harris put a hand on his shoulder. “Keith, wait. I want to talk to you. What happened in the simulator- it’s okay, Keith. You’re not in trouble. You panicked, that’s all. It’s been a long time since you’ve been in the simulator, and after what you’ve been through- it’s perfectly normal to have a bad reaction towards fire. However, you can’t let these things take over. I get it. It’s rough. But you’ve got to push through it, okay?”

“Okay. It won’t happen again, Sir.”

“Keith it’s okay if—”

“Sir, I need to get to my next class. Thank you.”

Keith brushed past Mr. Harris and moved on. _Stupid, stupid, stupid. You’re not supposed to react that way. You’re **better** than that. You can beat this_.

Keith’s next class was gym, and he spent it on the sidelines on Dr. Jenny’s orders, watching glumly and doing his English homework as the other students climbed ropes and lifted weights. He didn’t think that he’d ever miss gym class- and maybe he still didn’t, but there was a lost, left out feeling in the pit of his stomach back from his first days of the Garrison that he hadn’t noticed was gone until he wasn’t a part of his flight group anymore.

The bell rang and he wandered to English. He turned in the homework that he’d completed last period, and his teacher gave him a confused but happy smile.

“You remembered…”

“Yeah. Sorry I kept forgetting before.” Okay, he’d always _told_ the teacher that he’d ‘forgotten’ his homework, but in reality, he’d just never wanted to do it. There were much more interesting things to do, like read up on spaceships and the stars, or, more recently, watch sword-dancing tutorials. But he figured that the only way to get Shiro off of his back about his homework was to do it.

He spent English class counting the tiles on the ceiling. Sure, he’d liked _reading_ the book just fine, but he had drawn his own conclusions and analyzed it his own way- he didn’t need a teacher to tell him what she’d decided. It was all subjective, he thought, and the only one who knew for sure what all of the hidden meanings were would be the author. Whom the professor was most definitely not.

The bell rang again, and Keith headed towards lunch. True to his word, Shiro was there, waiting for him. “How’s school been.”

“Fine,” Keith replied, sitting down next to him, “I’ve been cut out of gym until Dr. Jenny is completely sure that I won’t pass out and die.”

“That’s good. You need to be completely recovered before you get put back into full school, and I think that throwing you back into the simulators and gym class at the same time was too much. It’s good to slow down.”

Keith made a disgruntled noise of disagreement and took a bite of the school lasagna. “English professor was surprised that I turned in my homework. She seemed happy.”

“Imagine that,” Shiro said serenely.

Keith made another disgruntled noise, wolfing down the rest of the food. “I- ah- have any of my teachers talked to you about the simulators?”

“No. Why?”

“Nothing.”

“Keith?”

Keith tried very hard not to look into those searching, calming grey eyes, but failed and sighed. “Bombed a simulator test today. Freaked out.” He stared down at his empty tray. “There was fire.”

“Hey- it’s okay. It’s okay, Keith,” Shiro told him, and Keith hates him in that moment- for always being so supportive and telling him that it’s okay even when it’s _not okay_ because he _never_ fails a simulator, and it’s not okay that he’s starting now. He’s supposed to be good at flying- it’s supposed to be the _one thing_ that he can do right, and suddenly he’s not good at it anymore. It’s not supposed to go like this. And Shiro shouldn’t be so supportive of the fact that Keith is _failing_.

“It’s not okay!”

Shiro blinked placidly at him. “Keith, we all mess up every once in a while. It’s okay to not be perfect.”

“But Shiro, I’m messing up _all of the time_! I can’t exercise anymore apparently, I don’t pay attention in most of my classes, I don’t do my homework—”

“Bud, the homework isn’t really that- Keith, it’s okay if you don’t always do your homework as long as you do it some of the time. I—”

“It’s not just about the homework, Shiro! It’s about this! All of it! I can’t work well with others, I don’t listen to the teachers—”

“You show initiative, and the ability to improvise,” Shiro cut in, “Which in a lot of cases will serve you much better than the ability to follow orders.”

“I can’t even keep a plant alive, and I just bombed a simulator—”

“Keith. Keith, calm down. It’s okay. I know what’s wrong. I know what’s up. You’ve been good at flying, and you’ve failed this time. And that’s okay. And it’s okay to be upset. The first time Matt failed a math quiz? He actually _cried_. He’ll deny it. But I saw it. Listen, one or two or even more bad runs don’t mean that you’re failing. It just means that you’ve found an area in flying that you need to practice at before you’re good at it. You’ll always have trouble spots. You can’t be perfect, and you shouldn’t try to force yourself to be. Just try to be the best you can.”

Keith crossed his arms. Why wasn’t Shiro angry?! He had just _bombed out_ in the very area that Shiro had brought him here to excel in!

“What’s this about the plant?” Shiro asked gently.

Keith scowled at the table. “The Pau Brasil plant that Mrs. Holt gave me. It’s dying, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Do you want me to take a look? I might not be a biologist, but I’ve spent enough time with the Holts to know how to take care of gardens.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Shiro gave him a pleading look. “Keith, I want to help you.”

Keith shrugged, his arms still crossed. “I know. I just… don’t think that I want to be helped right now.”

He shouldered his bag and stalked out of the mess hall, trying to get away from Shiro and his understanding, gentle, supportive face. He needed to take some time alone.

Xxx

Shiro sighed as Keith left. They’d been coming so far. And now… now he’d ruined it. He knew that failing at the thing you were supposed to be good at was rough. He knew that it was never fun. But he couldn’t help but feel like there was something else- something behind the failure in the simulator. Something behind the homework. Something behind the gym class, something that Keith wasn’t admitting to him.

“Oh, Keith,” he sighed, “What’s it going to take?”

Xxx

Keith rounded the corner and found himself at the ruined botany labs. He pushed his hands in his pockets. “Why do I keep coming back here?”

He slipped under the cautionary tape and went to the greenhouse, back to the Pau Brasil tree. When it had been alive, Keith had felt like it was a connection. A bridge between every living thing. It had thrummed with life and had seemed… intelligent. Like it held all the secrets of nature and would share them with him if he were just patient.

But now… even cold and dead, it was still powerful. Ancient. Mysterious. Keith curled up at its roots, where he always had, and felt it engulf him, keeping him safe. Protecting him from the outside.

_Here, you don’t have to be the best._

_You don’t have to always succeed and never fail._

_The tree doesn’t care about your simulator score._

_It’s burned._

_It’s broken._

_It’s no longer the tree it was._

_It’s not calm._

_It’s not quiet._

_But it’s safe_.

_Just safe for me._

Xxx

“Hey, Keith?” Shiro rapped his knuckles on Keith’s door, and it opened.

Keith shifted from one foot to the other. “Hey. I- uh- sorry. About earlier. I shouldn’t have blown up at you. It’s not your fault.”

Shiro felt a giant pressure lift from his chest. They were going to be okay. “Hey, no problem. We all get stressed. I’m glad you could blow off some steam.”

Keith gave him a tired smile, and held out his potted plant. “It’s wilting.”

Shiro gave it a look. “I think… well, the original was growing out in the desert. It probably wants a warmer climate.”

A look of distress crossed Keith’s face. “How am I going to get it that?”

“We could plant it out in the desert,” Shiro suggested, “It’s a wild thing. It might be time to release it into the wild.”

A grin spread across Keith’s face. “I know just where to put it.”

Xxx

Shiro’s hoverbike puttered to a stop outside of Keith’s little home, and Keith went around to the back of the house with the little pot. He scooped out desert sand and replanted the Pau Brasil.

“Do you think it’ll be okay?”

“I think it belongs out here. I think that it’ll be happy to be free.”

Keith smiled softly at the little plant. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

“I’ve got something for you.” Shiro handed Keith a pair of fingerless gloves. “I saw you, earlier, trying to hide your burns. I thought these might help.”

“Shiro—”

“Keith, it’s okay. You don’t have to display them to the world. You can keep them hidden. I understand.”

Keith hesitated, then tugged the gloves over his hands, looking at the covered-up skin. “Dr. Jenny said that I was mature for not caring if it scarred. I- I didn’t want to tell her that I _did_ care.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Keith, really. If you don’t want to display your scars, it’s okay.”

“But I _shouldn’t_ care, Shiro! It’s just skin! I don’t _want_ to care, I just…” Keith trailed off miserably. “It’s just…”

“One thing on top of another,” Shiro finished quietly, “I know what that’s like.”

Keith stood up suddenly. “No! No, you don’t!”

“Keith—”

“You don’t get it! You weren’t always told that you needed to behave, that you were a discipline case! No one ever called you a psychopath! No one ever told you that you had _issues_!”

“Keith—”

“You keep acting like we’re the same, but we’re _not_! Everything comes so easily to you- you’re smart, you’re good with people, you can outfly anyone- all I’ve got is flying, and now- now I’m not even sure that I can do _that_! And all because of a stupid fire!

And they’re going to find out! They’ll find out that I won’t be able to fly because I freak out when I see fire! And then they’ll just keep me around for my stupid genes, and no one will be able to look at me normally because I’m some kind of alien and- and you won’t ever know what that’s like, being rejected and thrown away because of something that you can’t control, because of how you were born!”

Keith turned heel and ran, ran out into the desert. Shiro ran out after him, but then his hoverike was rising into the air, and Keith was driving, piloting out further into the desert.

“KEITH!” Shiro shouted, but he knew that Keith would never hear him, not over the roar of the bike and the wind in his ears. “Keith,” he said again, softer. But Keith was gone.

Shiro looked out at the desert horizon, hoping he could track his hoverbike down. But what he saw chilled him down to his core.

A sandstorm, roaring across the desert.

Keith would be heading right into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, that's the problem with prodigies, isn't it? With so much pressure, they're so easy to break...


	16. A Sandstorm of Time (and a Constellation of Friendship)

Keith parked the hoverbike, his spur-of-the-moment action-induced adrenaline fading and giving way to horror. He’d just stolen Shiro’s hoverbike. He’d _stolen_ it. Not like with Shiro’s car, where it had been for attention, and he wouldn’t have actually gone anywhere- he’d _stolen_ Shiro’s hoverbike and run out into the desert with it, and left Shiro stranded in the middle of the desert.

Keith felt his chest grow tight, and he ran his fingers through his bangs, trying to keep his breathing under control. They wouldn’t excuse this. _Shiro_ wouldn’t excuse this, and no matter how gentle and patient he had been, he would give Keith The Look. The one that said he had been an idiot for wasting time on Keith. The one that said that he was nothing but a problem child. The look that said ‘this is for the best’ as he was shifted to a new place, not a home, but a house. The look that expressed deep and utter disappointment, and yet, at the same time, no surprise.

Keith didn’t want to see that look coming from Shiro. He didn’t want to see it ever again, but _especially_ not from Shiro. But it was coming. It would come as soon as they tracked him down.

 _I could run away_ , a little voice in his head whispered, _I could run away, and hide until they stopped looking, and then I could go to the house. I could live there_.

 _Yeah_ , a different, sarcastic, saner voice answered scathingly, _you and what food? What water? How will you survive? You’d need a job, and they don’t hire at thirteen- not to mention that the instant you gave identification, you’d get hauled off by the cops. No. You’ll have to pay the piper. You stole the hoverbike. You ran off into the desert. You’ll have to take the consequences_.

But still. The _Look_. Coming from _Shiro_. The thought of Shiro’s face crumpling into that disappointed, stern, distant, angry expression made Keith want to bury his head in the sand like an ostrich.

The tightness was only getting worse, and Keith reached in his pocket for his inhaler, sure that this was one of the times that Dr. Jenny would have told him to use it.

His hands closed on empty air, and he searched through his other pockets, feeling frantically for the medication, but it was gone. He slammed his eyes shut, trying to remember where he’d had it last. He’d had it this morning. He’d felt its weight in his pockets all day, and then…

And then he’d changed at the end of the day into his jeans and the jacket Shiro had given him. He hadn’t ever switched pockets. Keith glanced back at the desert. Too late. He didn’t have a _clue_ where he was, and wandering would only make it worse.

He heard a slight roaring noise, and he shaded his eyes, looking towards the horizon. What he saw made him run immediately back to the hoverbike and try to get it running. It gave a cough and failed. Keith gulped. He was trapped, with no inhaler, no way of getting back to the Garrison or even back to his house.

And the mother of all sandstorms was headed his way.

Xxx

Shiro sent out an emergency distress beacon to the Garrison, shifting from one foot to the other. Keith was out there, alone. He didn’t know how to drive a hoverbike, not properly anyway, and even if he did, his body was too small to reach the controls in the way that they should.

Shiro’s heart clenched at the idea of Keith, alone, hurt in the desert, the hoverbike crashed, maybe on top of him-

Shiro shook away the thought. It wouldn’t do Keith any good to picture the worst possible scenario. Keith was a strong, tough, resourceful kid. He wouldn’t crash.

Shiro climbed up the side of a fence connected to the house and hauled himself up onto the roof, scanning the horizon for any sign of Keith. There were no telltale signs of a crash- no smoke, nothing bad, but not _any_ sign of the hoverbike at _all_. Shiro slid back down to the ground. He knew the general direction Keith had taken, but he could’ve taken any number of turns on the way. Walking the general way that Keith had disappeared would get him nowhere- it would only tire him out. And as he didn’t have a clue where Keith was…

Shiro shook his head. Keith would head back when he saw the sandstorm. No matter how upset he was, he’d grown up out here. He’d know that a sandstorm was not something to mess with. And if Shiro went out looking for him, not only did he increase his own chance of getting stuck in the storm, but Keith wouldn’t have any idea where or how to find him. No, he had to stay here- and besides, this was where his emergency beacon had gone off and hopefully where the Garrison would be soon. He’d just have to wait.

Still, Shiro looked out at the desert uneasily. _Keith, where are you_?

Xxx

Keith struggled to push the hoverbike to face the oncoming storm. It wouldn’t provide much cover, but it would help. It was heavy, though, and he staggered beneath the weight, gasping for breath, the tightness in his chest only increasing as he worked. After he got it up, he collapsed in its shelter as the wind started to pick up.

Keith zipped his jacket up so that its high collar covered the bottom half of his face. Sweat poured down his face, despite the cool wind, and he coughed as sand blew into his mouth despite his best efforts to keep it out. The coughing only inhaled more sand, and Keith choked, shielding his face from the wind and sand with one sleeve as he attempted to spit out the sand coating the inside his mouth.

Keith didn’t know if it was the sand, the strain of pushing the hoverbike into position, or and aftereffect of the hot guilt that he’d felt earlier, but the creature from before was back, sitting on his lungs, making it impossible to breath.

Keith reached for an inhaler that he knew wasn’t there, and then fingered the charm, eying it doubtfully. Shiro wouldn’t come. Shiro was probably on his way back to the Garrison right now.

_“I will **always** be there.”_

_“I will **never** give up on you._”

An increase of the pressure on his chest made Keith’s decision for him. He double-clicked the charm, struggling to keep himself in a sitting position and coughing.

 _Shiro, please. Hurry_.

Xxx

Shiro jumped as his watch beeped, giving him a small message that Keith was in trouble, along with a GPS coordinate a few miles to the west of Shiro’s current location.

 _The Garrison will only know that you’re here. They won’t know where you’ve gone_.

Shiro shook the thought away. Keith needed his help. And _fast._ He started a steady, fast jog across the soft desert sand, looking to his watch GPS for guidance. It gave him a warning bleep, telling him not to overexert himself, as he probably would if he kept up this pace, but he ignored it, plowing through sand that seemed to try to actively hamper his movement.

The sky was getting dark, and he glanced from his watch to his surroundings. The wind was picking up, whipping through his bangs, and he slitted his eyes against the sand. This was taking long enough as it was- and Keith didn’t have time. He upped his pace.

Xxx

Keith curled into a ball, coughing and wheezing and barely even trying to keep his face out of the sand. Shiro wasn’t coming. He’d known, deep down inside, that he wouldn’t. Not after what Keith had said to him. Not after he’d stolen Shiro’s hoverbike. Not after he’d abandoned him. He’d probably turned the alert off on his watch so that Keith wouldn’t bother him.

_He left._

_He’s probably back at the Garrison._

_They’re probably writing expulsion forms._

_I… I guess I’m going to die_.

Keith’s head lifted ever-so-slightly as he heard something coming across the wind. It had sounded like his name.

“Here,” he managed, and regretted it immediately as more sand flew into his mouth, and the monster in his chest settled, growing heavier.

_Shi…ro…_

Xxx

Shiro strained to hear over the wind, spitting out sand. He was getting close to the GPS coordinate, but the storm made the watch fritz out periodically.

A faint reply came to him from across the sand, and Shiro squinted in the direction of the shout.

“KEITH!” he bellowed. This time, there was no reply, and he hurried towards the sound, barely managing to make out the outline of his hoverbike, set up as a barrier against the wind and sand. Shiro felt the worry in his chest take a dash of pride.

 _Clever boy_.

Shiro struggled through the winds to the hoverbike and found Keith on the ground, unresponsive. His lips were tinged blue, and Shiro’s heart plummeted, his fingers reaching desperately to find a pulse, and then heard a wheeze from Keith.

Shiro’s fingers fumbled for the spare inhaler that he had in his pocket, shaking the inhaler and pulling the cover off. Keith’s eyes blinked once at him, and Shiro sat him up.

“Keith, buddy, I need you to open your mouth.”

Keith’s face held no recognition of Shiro, but he obediently opened and closed his mouth around the inhaler, breathing in when Shiro told him to as he squeezed in inhaler and then holding his breath until Shiro told him to release it.

“That’s it, you’ll be okay. You’ll be okay,” Shiro promised, wishing that his voice wouldn’t _shake so much_. He waited a minute, then gave Keith another dose, trying to keep his face calm and his hands steady. Keith’s wheeze grew less pronounced, and Shiro felt his heart stutter and start again, beating a frantic tempo against his ribcage that was slowly. The inhaler wasn’t a cure-all. He was still _definitely_ taking Keith to Dr. Jenny once they got back to the Garrison. But for now, it was working.

Keith pushed his hand and the inhaler in it away, still wheezing, but not as badly. “’m okay,” he murmured, “Just…” he slumped against Shiro’s side. “Thought… maybe you weren’t… weren’t coming…”

Shiro shifted to wrap an arm around him, holding him in an upright position for better breathing. “Hey, I said I’d always come, didn’t I?” He reached behind him, pulling open a panel on the hoverbike and taking out a waterbottle. “Gargle and spit, bud, you don’t want to swallow the medicine.”

Keith obeyed, his eyes starting to drift shut, the wheezing settling down to rough breathing that Shiro put up to the amount of sand flying around. “’m sorry, Shiro. Shouldn’t have…” he trailed off, rubbing his bracelet absentmindedly. “Sorry,” he repeated.

“Hey, I’m just glad I found you,” Shiro said gently, rubbing Keith’s arm, “What happened to your inhaler?”

“Forgot to… to switch pockets… Sorry… for the bike… broken…”

Shiro craned his neck to look up at the bike. “Just a busted stabilizer. It’s like a flat tire. It happens. You’re more important.”

“They’re going to kick me out,” Keith murmured dully.

“I’m not going to let them kick you out for this,” Shiro said firmly, “The Garrison doesn’t have to know.”

“Why…?”

“Keith, we all get upset. We all get stressed. And we do things that we regret later. No, you shouldn’t have taken the bike. No, I’m not happy that you ran off in the desert. But I’d be even _less_ happy if I hadn’t been able to find you and you’d gotten hurt. Yeah, you messed up. But I should’ve been watching closer. I should’ve seen that you were hitting your breaking point with everything that you’ve been going through lately. I shouldn’t have let you feel so alone and stressed.” He glanced down at Keith, whose eyes had finally drifted shut. “And I think that you’re asleep.”

“’m not,” Keith murmured with a yawn. “’m just resting my eyes.”

Shiro smiled down at him. “You get some rest, okay? The Garrison will be coming for us. I sent out an emergency beacon.”

Keith blinked up at him with half-closed eyes. “Shiro… is the Garrison going to throw me out because of the asthma?”

It all hits Shiro at once. Keith's moodiness. Not liking that he was prohibited from gym class. “Is that what’s been bothering you?”

Keith nodded, tears brimming in his eyes, although Shiro can see that he’s trying to hold them back. “I can’t do gym for a long time… I have to have an inhaler… I can’t go in the simulators enough… They…”

“Keith. Listen. The Garrison won’t throw you out because of that. If you work hard, do well—”

Keith gave him a small, impish grin. “Do my homework?”

Shiro laughed softly. “Yeah. That. If you try your hardest and prove that you can do it- they’ll let you fly, even if you _do_ have asthma.”

“How do you _know_?”

Shiro flinched at the weary, heartbroken tone to Keith’s voice. “I know because…” he let out a deep breath. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a while, but… it just never seemed like the right time.”

“Tell me what?”

“I have… a condition, a- a disease” Shiro said carefully, “It’s… well… it’s getting worse. I’ll only be able to maintain my peak condition for a couple more years. But even knowing that- even despite that, the Garrison was willing to let me fly missions, at least until I can’t keep it up anymore. After that… they don’t want me up there. But for now, while I can- I’m flying. And your asthma- it’s containable, or at least Dr. Jenny thinks it is. It’s controllable, if you’re careful enough. You’ll be able to fly, Keith, I _promise_. Do you believe me?”

Keith meets his eyes, his violet ones firm and determined. “I believe you.”

Xxx

Iverson buzzed the coms. “Desert rescue, check in, do you see them?”

“I’ve got eyes on them,” one of the rescue members affirms, “Shirogane looks fine. The cadet isn’t moving- wait- I think he’s just asleep. Permission to move in?”

“Permission granted.”

Iverson watched through the desert jeep cameras as the rescue team moved out to Shiro and Keith. Admiral Sanda watched over his shoulder.

“Good thing you got the cadet back. It would not have been good for you if you’d lost the only possible link to extraterrestrial life that we have.”

Iverson felt a bead of sweat make its way down the back of his neck. “Yes, Ma’am.” He didn’t miss that Sanda didn’t mention Takeshi Shirogane.

The rescue team hurried Shiro and Kogane towards the car, wrapping shock blankets around them, which seemed like a good idea as Kogane looked rather dazed.

“Sir,” the squad leader crackled in, “Shirogane says to notify Dr. Jennifer Orla that Cadet Kogane is coming in. We’re coming back.”

Two hours later, they _are_ back, Takashi Shirogane fine, if covered in sand and a bit tired, and Cadet Kogane leaning on the older man for support, but more from exhaustion than any injury.

Shiro snapped to attention, and after a brief moment, Kogane followed suit. “Sir.”

“At ease.” Iverson felt a grin start to break its way past his iron façade. “Good to have you back.”

Xxx

“Inhaler worked, then?”

Keith nodded, wishing that he could curl up on Dr. Jenny’s table and fall asleep. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“I still had a little trouble breathing. But I think that was just the sand.”

“You were able to use it in time, then?”

Keith shifted uncomfortably. “Um. Well. I… I left it in my uniform pocket. Shiro had to use his.”

“Ah. Don’t feel too bad. It happens to the best of us. But now you know why you have to make sure that you always have it, right?”

Keith nodded, then frowned. “Wait. Best of _us_?”

Dr. Jenny nodded and fished an inhaler out of her pocket. “I haven’t had to use it for a few years now, because I haven’t set off an attack. I’ve gotten good at avoiding my triggers. But I still carry it, because there’s no telling what will happen. And you’ve got to get in that mindset, too. No telling.”

Keith nodded.

Dr. Jenny smiled. “They told me I couldn’t do much, with asthma. But they were wrong. I like my job. I like the patients. I’m happy. Don’t let them squash your dreams, Keith. You can do whatever you put your mind to.” Her nose crinkled ever so slightly. “Maybe firefighting isn’t a very good idea, though.”

The door opened, and Shiro and Iverson came through. Iverson cleared his throat.

“Shirogane, I’d like you to explain what happened out there.”

“The bike blew a stabilizer,” Shiro replied calmly. “We couldn’t drive back, and the storm hit hard, so even if we could’ve fixed it, it would’ve been too dangerous to attempt a flight.”

Keith blinked. Well. It wasn’t _exactly_ a lie. That _had_ happened.

“And what about the signal? The origin of your distress beacon was several miles off of the location that we found you.”

Keith stared at the floor, his heart beating a frantic tempo in his chest, and a sick feeling arising in his stomach.

“Sir, while I was out in the storm, the GPS on my watch kept fritzing and blinking out. Maybe the two are related?”

Keith looked up, hardly daring to hope- Shiro was covering for him? He hadn’t lied- not really. He’d offered an alternative, but hadn’t confirmed or denied that the fritzing GPS was the problem.

Iverson grunted. “Storms,” he muttered, “They mess up even the best of technology. Right. I’ll be going then.”

Once he was out of the door, Keith launched himself towards Shiro, wrapping his arms around the older man’s waist.

“Thank you for covering. Thank you for not telling him about how I ran off and—”

“Keith, whoa—” Shiro glanced at Dr. Jenny, who was tapping away at a med screen.

“I appear to have temporarily gone deaf,” she remarked, still tapping away at her screen, “Weird family defect.”

Shiro shot her a grateful look. “Keith, listen. I wasn’t going to feed you to Iverson. I think you learned your lesson already?”

Keith rubbed his chest at the memory of that feeling- of being absolutely helpless, unable to breathe, knowing that it was _his_ fault for running and _his_ fault for getting worked up. For leaving Shiro too far behind for him to reach Keith in any good time.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Right. I’m not going to punish you, and I don’t think you should be punished. You went through a lot, and punishing you would be arbitrary and useless. But Keith?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“I want you to trust me if you can, okay? If you can’t, that’s okay, but I want to be here for you, Keith.”

Keith looked up into Shiro’s eyes. “I want that, too.”

_Three years later_.

 

“Come on, Keith, I want you to see the ship before the launch!”

Keith followed Shiro out to the open-air launch, looking up in awe at the towering structure. “I can’t believe it. You’re going to go _all the way_ to the _edge_ of our _solar system_.”

“I know. It’s going to be _amazing_. I mean, it’ll take a year to get there, sure, but _still_.”

“Are you allowed to bring me back a Pluto rock?”

“Definitely not allowed.”

“Can’t have it all, I guess.”

Shiro looked at his watch. “The launch is soon. I’ve got to get going.” He gave Keith a hug. “Behave yourself. Do your homework.”

“Me? Never.” Keith gave the rocket a wistful look. “When you’re in space? Get going places for me until I can get going places for myself.”

Shiro gave him a bittersweet smile. “You’re always going somewhere, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Got to keep moving.”

“Well, try not to move too far before I get back, okay?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Shiro ruffled his hair, eliciting a swat. “Gonna miss you.”

“Miss you, too. I’ll watch Kerberos with a telescope.”

Shiro grinned sadly. “I’ll wave to you.”

They embraced one last time, and Shiro left for the launch, Keith going back to the safe zones. The countdown started. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

Shiro’s rocket blasted off, and Keith cheers, watching him go. His last flight. He watches until the rocket is completely out of sight and then some, taking a puff of his inhaler as the smoke from the rocket threatens to set off an attack.

That night, Keith yawns his way to the window. “Night, Po. Night, Dad.” He looks out on the stars, at Orion’s shimmering belt. “Tell Shiro I said goodnight,” he whispers to them.

 _He says sleep tight, Keith_ , the stars twinkle back, _Don’t let the bedbugs bite_. And then, a breeze drifts through the window. A fresh breeze, that somehow, impossibly, smells of the Pau Brasil tree.

_Quiet._

_Calm._

_Safe._

 

 _Free_.

 

 

“ _Good friends are like stars. You don't always see them, but you know they're always there.” **–Christy Evans.**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thinking of maybe a sequel of what's going on between the launch and the kidnapping? Keith's expulsion, maybe? Yes? No?


	17. Sequel

Yep, so, started on that sequel I was talking about maybe doing. It's called Breathe in, if you want to read it. That's it, so, uh, have a nice day, I guess.


End file.
